In her interview on August 9, the day of the incident, MC Owner told a story in which she was following very closely behind Police Officer Darren Wilson's police vehicle but did not see him back up and block the path of Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson.
MC Owner Leaving my apartment, coming up towards West Florissant, I was right behind the police officer. Two young men was walking in the middle of the street. .... They was walking towards the [Canfield Green] complex [i.e. walking east]. .... I was coming up towards West Florissant [i.e. driving west].
Detective And you said there was a police officer in front of you?
MC Owner Yes. .... It was a truck ... SUV.
Detective How far behind this police officer were you?
MC Owner Probably ten feet, at the most.
Detective So..from that point, you're behind the police vehicle. You see these kids walking. Describe how they were walking down the street.
MC Owner Actually, they was walking in the middle.
As the officer approached the two young men, I don't know what was said between the two parties, but I know something had to had been said -- just because basically the truck was moving back and forth, like there was kind of a tussling going on.
Detective Okay, just to make sure that have this correct:
The truck is headed towards the gentlemen that are walking on the yellow line. Did the police officer's truck at any point stop?
MC Owner Yes. For a short period of time. Yes.
Detective Do you know why that police officer had to stop his truck?
MC Owner Not to my knowledge, no. I didn't know why.
Detective Where young men at when he stopped?
MC Owner They were still proceeding to walk in the middle of the street.
Detective Alright, so the police officer stopped, and he stopped right next to them? Did he stop in front of them, or did he stop once he passed them up?
MC Owner No, he stopped right on the side of them.
Detective Once he stopped his vehicle, tell me what you saw.
MC Owner Once he stopped his vehicle, I didn't hear or seen anything. I just saw the one young man [Johnson] that was with him [Brown], with the deceased suspect. He [Johnson] was a brown-skinned guy. He was short, thin, with dreads.
I saw him [Johnson] come in the back of the truck. He was like looking but didn't know what was going on.
I saw the feet of somebody [Brown]. I looked up under the truck. I saw the feet moving, kind of tapping -- like, it was like some kind of confrontation going on.
Detective Okay and the time when you saw this police vehicle, you said you saw it shaking from left to right?
MC Owner Yeah.
[Pages 1 - 4]MC Owner's statement that she was tail-gating Wilson at a distance of no more than ten feet is not plausible. If she actually were following so closely, then Wilson would not have been able to back up to block Brown's and Johnson's path. MC Owner seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Wilson backed up a considerable distance.
I speculate that MC Owner did not did not see Wilson back up because at that moment she was making her U-turn. Perhaps she turned around in Copper Creek Court.
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| PV = Police Vehicle MC = Monte Carlo While MC Owner turned her Monte Carlo around in Copper Creek Court, she did not see Wilson drive his police vehicle backward in order to block Brown's and Johnson's path. |
By the time she returned to Canfield Drive, Brown and Wilson already were struggling at the police vehicle's door. From their Coppercreek Court distance, MC Owner and MC Passenger (MC Owner did not mention her passenger to the detective on August 9) could indeed see, through the space underneath the police vehicle, Brown's feet moving. She saw the entire police vehicle shaking.
Curious about Brown, MC Owner then drove her car slowly toward the police vehicle. Meanwhile, Johnson ran away laughing from the police vehicle.
She stopped her Monte Carlo close to the police vehicle. She did not foresee any danger. She did not expect gunshots to be fired from inside the police vehicle.
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By the time MC Owner was interviewed by the detective on August 9, she already had talked with Johnson -- he sat in the Monte Carlo for a while -- so she knew that Wilson had stopped because Brown and Johnson were walking in the middle of the street. She knew more from Johnson than she knew from her personal experience of looking in her rear-view mirror and seeing the middle-of-the-street encounter from a distance.
She still did not, however, know the key detail that Wilson had backed his vehicle a considerable distance to block Brown's and Johnson's path. She herself had not seen that happen, and Johnson had not mentioned it to her when he told her about the incident.
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