A loud noise woke Brady as Johnson ran north across Canfield Drive

Michael Brady had slept from about 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Perhaps he was suffering from a severe hang-over. His fiancée woke him up because a friend of his had come to visit. Michael got up from bed and took his friend out onto the balcony to talk for a few minutes. The friend left. Michael went back to bed at about 11:45 to sleep some more. 

At about 12:02 p.m., he heard a loud noise coming through the bedroom's closed window. Later he described the noise as "some kind of ruffling .... some real tussling .... I was hearing lots of noises .... like hitting the door .... something just got my attention" (pages 10 and 14). 

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At the same moment, Dorian Johnson heard the same loud noise as he was running away, carrying two handfuls of cigarillos and laughing. At that point in time, he had reached a spot in front of 9390-9394 Canfield Drive*.

When Brady and Johnson heard the loud noise,
Brady was in bed trying to sleep and
Johnson had run to the area in front of 9390-9394 Canfield Drive

The loud noise caused Johnson to stop running southeast and to north across Canfield Drive to get a different perspective.  

While Brady got up from his bed and looked out his bedroom window, Johnson ran to an area between the sidewalk and tree on the street's north side. When the first gunshot was fired from inside the police vehicle, Johnson ran toward the Monte Carlo's open passenger door. 

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Brady told an FBI special agent what he saw when he looked out his window.  

I looks outside, and I see some kind of tussling going on in the [police vehicle's] window. Really not sure if Mike Brown was punching on him or if the officer [Darren Wilson] was grabbing on him, but something was going on through the window.  It just didn't look right, so I glued my eyes to it.

All of the sudden, I see also his [Brown's] friend [Johnson]. He [Johnson] was on the side of the car, on the front bumper on the passenger side, maybe four, five feet away from him.

And all of the sudden, they [Brown and Johnson] just takes off running. When they takes off running, I see his [Brown's] friend [Johnson] runs behind a two-door white car. He's ducking down behind the trunk of the car looking at the officer, because he [Wilson] just immediately gets out of his vehicle and just started shooting at Mike Brown. 

[Pages 5 - 8]

Whenever Brady told his story -- the above passage is a good example -- he never specified any moments when he heard the two gunshots fired inside the police vehicle. In his narratives, Wilson fired his first gunshots while walking away from the police vehicle. Brady said Wilson fired four to six shots at Brown's back. 

Brady never described the Monte Carlo driving backward, so the first gunshot and the Monte Carlo's backward movement evidently happened before he began looking. 

I think Brady remembers the gunshots' timing mistakenly. He heard the gunshots around the time he looked out the window -- one gunshot before he began looking and one gunshot after he began looking. He also heard echos, multiplying the number to four or six gunshots. 

According to Fiancée Brady, he told her: "Baby, look out the window. They're shooting." 

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Then, "all of the sudden", Johnson appeared in Brady's view -- on the front bumper on the passenger side, maybe four, five feet from him". I think that Brady's view resembled the below image.  

Red Figure = Johnson, seen from Brady's bedroom window
a few seconds after the first gunshot

The above image was an adjustment I made from an image created by Gary, a frequent commentator on The Conservative Treehouse website. Gary's image, illustrating the view from Brady's apartment, is on this webpage (double-click on it to see it in a larger size). I cropped his image, moved the Monte Carlo much closer to the police vehicle, and drew the red stick-figure. 

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How did Johnson come to that location?

In the minutes following the incident, Brady used his cell phone to film the scene and to narrate his observations. Later, he lent his cell phone to investigators, who copied the video. Later, on September 17, Brady was interviewed by an FBI special agent, who asked him about statements he had made on the video. 

The video never was released to the public, so this interview is the only source of information about Brady's narration. During this part of the interview, the FBI special agent remarked about Brady's video narration: 

You [Brady] said the dude [Johnson] ran on the side -- you're talking about the other one [Johnson] -- ran to the Monte Carlo. Then he [Johnson] went back to the first guy [Brown]. 

[Page 16]

I interpret this remark to mean that Johnson:

1) "ran on the side",

2) ran to the Monte Carlo, 

3) "went back to" Brown -- went to the position of the red stick-figure, (From that position, Johnson (like Brady) was able to see Brown through the police vehicle's front window)  

4) ran back to the Monte Carlo (not stated in that passage, but stated elsewhere). 

Unfortunately, the interview diverted immediately to another topic, and so Brady never elaborated about Johnson's movements back and forth between the Monte Carlo and the police vehicle. 

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By the time when Brady heard the loud noise and then got out of bed and looked out his window, many actions already had happened. 

* Johnson already had grabbed all the cigarillos and run away from the police vehicle. 

* The first gunshot already had been fired. 

* The Monte Carlo already had moved backward. 

* Johnson already had run from the tree area to the Monte Carlo.

Brady's awareness of Brown's and Wilson's struggle at the police vehicle began with an unseen time -- from the moment when he heard the loud noise until the moment when he began looking out his bedroom window. Then followed a seen time -- from the moment when he began looking until the moment when Brown (and Johnson) ran away from the police vehicle.  

Brady told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the seen time was about ten seconds (1:30). 

During those ten seconds, Johnson appeared "all the sudden" in Brady's view. Johnson had come to that location from the Monte Carlo. 

Then Johnson ran back to the Monte Carlo, and Brown ran down the middle of the street. 

About five seconds after Brown ran away, Wilson fired his second gunshot out the police vehicle's window.  

Brady did hear both gunshots and yelled to his fiancée that "they're shooting". However, those first two gunshots did not register in his memory of what happened while Wilson was inside the police vehicle. Rather, he ultimately remembered mistakenly that those gunshots happened after Wilson got out of the vehicle. 

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* Several days ago, after I wrote this article, I realized that Johnson ran another route after he grabbed the cigarillos. I am continuing to use the above image for now, but I will rewrite several articles to correct the route. See my new article about the address problem.