Brady saw a burgundy Bonneville, with open doors, in the parking lot

When Michael Brady looked out his bedroom window, he saw Michael Brown and Police Officer Darren Wilson tussling at the police vehicle's driver-side window. Brady saw also two cars with their doors open and one car with its doors closed:

1) a white Monte Carlo, which was stopped along Canfield Drive's curb, about seven feet east of the police vehicle -- both doors open.

A 1999 Monte Carlo, the last model, painted white.

2) a burgundy (or purple)Bonneville, which was parked in the nearby parking lot -- both front doors open.

A 2002 Pontiac Bonneville, the last model, painted burgundy.

3) a green Grand Am, which was stopped along Canfield Drive's curb -- all doors closed.  

A 2005 Grand Am, the last model, painted green.

Brady did not remember the green Grand Am's make or color, but he did see it leave the scene. The make and color were stated definitely by police officer Darren Wilson.

I think that the below image shows the automobiles' locations.  

The green Grand Am arrived to the scene late -- after the first gunshot and after the Monte Carlo's backward movement. I imagine that it arrived around the moment of the second gunshot. Brady paid relatively little attention to this car. 

In this article here, I will tell Brady's memory of the burgundy-purple Bonneville. 

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When Brady was interviewed by a detective on August 13, 2014, four days after the incident, he mentioned the white and purple cars.  

Detective  Now show me [on an overhead photograph of the scene] where that Monte Carlo was at.

Brady  It was probably about right here. It was two cars actually -- a white one and a purple [burgundy] one.

[Page 14]

Unfortunately, the detective did not ask him to elaborate about the purple car. In a later statement, however, he indicated that his attention was drawn to these two cars because their doors were open. In Brady's mind (I think), these were the two cars into which Dorian Johnson might have tried to enter. 

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In a later interview with an FBI special agent on September 17, Brady again mentioned those two cars. He said Johnson hid behind "the first one", "the white car", the one parked "a little behind the police cruiser". 

FBI SA  You said you see Mike Brown and the guy with the dreads [Johnson] take off ...

Brady  Yeah. .... Mike Brown is on the driver's side of the car, so he takes off behind the [police] vehicle directly in the middle of the road. 

And his friend [Johnson] -- there was a parked vehicle [the Monte Carlo] a little behind the police cruiser. .... 

It was actually two buildings [cars]. His friend [Johnson] was in the front [of the police vehicle], and he runs to the very first one [to the Monte Carlo], to the trunk of it. 

The officer get out of the car and started shooting ... and taking large steps. .....

FBI SA  I'm sorry to cut you off. You see this guy with the dreads. Where does he actually go?

Brady  He runs behind the trunk of the white car, the first one. 

[Pages 30 - 31]

Unfortunately, the FBI special agent did not ask Brady to elaborate about the second car's color and location.

At one point in the above passage, the word "cars" was mistakenly spoken as the word "buildings". I speculate that the verbal slip occurred as Brady was trying to express the following thought: 

There was a white vehicle parked a little behind the police cruiser, and there was a purple vehicle parked near the building.

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Later in that same FBI interview, Brady mentioned a "maybe burgundy" Bonneville. In the same passage, Brady described the same car to the FBI special agent as "purple". While Brady was looking through his bedroom window, he had noticed the Bonneville on the parking lot. 

Immediately after the incident, Brady was standing on his balcony by his front door and using his cell phone to film and narrate the scene. A young African-American man -- a stranger to Brady -- got out of the Bonneville and approached the apartment building's stairwell. Brady and the Bonneville occupant discussed the incident. 

The Bonneville occupant informed Brady about what had happened before Brady began looking through his bedroom window. 

FBI SA  After it [the incident] happened and you were on your cell phone, you're recording. Can you talk about who was around you. You were narrating it [the cell-phone video]. There are people in the background. 

Brady ... It was a guy on that parking lot in a maybe burgundy Bonneville.  Him and his girlfriend was already sitting out there, and they were just talking. 

I remember him saying that the officer reversed back and ran over his [Brown's] foot. .... I assumed that he [Brown] just ran into the [police] car and got to punching on him [Wilson], but he [the Bonneville occupant] said that he [Wilson] reversed back and ran over his [Brown's] foot and tried to grab him [Brown] through the [police] car window. 

FBI SA  Do you know this person [the Bonneville occupant]?

Brady  No, I never seen him before.  

FBI SA  Have you seen him since?

Brady  No.

FBI SA  So, the recording you provided ... was it from the balcony?

Brady  Yeah, it was from the balcony.

FBI SA  Help me understand that. When I watch that recording, it seemed like .... the person in that car, that burgundy car down below, is talking up to you.

Brady  I can't even remember. I don't know if he came up on the steps. ...

FBI SA  You say a burgundy car?

Brady  Yeah. When I went out there onto ground level, that's when I was really talking to him. I'm trying to remember if I was recording on my balcony or if he walked up to the steps. ....

FBI SA  When you say "balcony", is it right outside your front door or a [sliding glass] door outside of your living room?

Brady  It is right outside the front door.

FBI SA  So, the steps are right in front of your door?

Brady  Yeah, right in front of my [front] door. The balcony is right there.

[Pages 53 - 55] 

FBI SA  When you talked to him [the Bonneville occupant], did the two of you kind of piece this together?

Brady  He saw the whole thing basically, but I pieced his [observations] with mine.

FBI SA  You say he saw the whole thing, and he never gave you his name?

Brady  No. 

FBI SA  Do you know how to find him?

Brady  Not at all. I don't remember seeing him again afterwards -- or the vehicle.

FBI SA  Can you, real quick, tell us what he told you again about what he saw?

Brady  He said that the officer pulls up to them [Brown and Johnson], and the officer say something to them, and they say something back. And he [Wilson] reversed back, and that's why the police cruiser is in the middle of the street diagonal, because he [Wilson] cuts Mike Brown off. And he says that he [Wilson] runs over his [Brown's] foot ... and that's where the tussle started at. .... He [Brown] was punching on him [Wilson] in the window.  

And that's when I came to the [bedroom] window, because I heard the little tussle. 

FBI SA  Did he say anything to you about a gunshot while the police officer was in the car? 

Brady  ..... I don't remember that the guy with the purple [burgundy] car said that to me. ..... I only started hearing shots when he [Wilson] gets out the vehicle.

FBI SA  This individual ... told you what he saw before you actually started looking out the [bedroom] window. You didn't see any of that -- the police officer pull up and an exchange between the two of them talking or him backing the car up -- you didn't see any of that?

Brady  No, I didn't.

[Pages 62 - 64]

FBI SA  It seems kind of weird to us that this stranger starts coming up and having a whole discussion with you. 

Brady  Everybody just started talking to everybody. ... I saw him already at the [bedroom] window. 

[Page 71]

FBI SA  Could I ask you some more about the guy in the burgundy [purple] car? ... About how old is he?

Brady  I know he's younger than me -- a lot younger guy.  ....

FBI SA  Was he Black or White?

Brady   Black.

FBI SA  Was he with anybody in the [car]?

Brady  With a girl, maybe his girlfriend.....

[Pages 74 - 75]  

It seems that the Bonneville driver did not inform Brady about what happened away from the police vehicle. If so, then the Bonneville must have been on the parking lot in a place where the driver could see the actions around the police vehicle, but not the actions around the final, fatal shooting. That discrepancy would be true if the Bonneville was parked as shown in the image at the beginning of this article.

The parking spot is directly below Piaget Crenshaw's bedroom window. For some reason, the Bonneville's two occupants never have identified themselves to investigators, and I speculate that their persistent reluctance has something to do with Crenshaw.

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Below is an image depicting the view from Brady's apartment. The image was made by "Gary", a commentator in discussions conducted at The Conservative Treehouse. The image can be seen in full size here.  

Small-size image depicting the view from Brady's apartment. 

Below is the left part of the above image, in full size. All the labels were added by me.

If the purple-burgundy Bonneville was parked where I think it was, 
then the view from Brady's apartment is depicted above. 

The Monte Carlo's and Bonneville's doors were open. 

Ignore the black car behind the Monte Carlo 
and ignore the green SUV in the foreground. 

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Near the end of his grand-jury testimony, Brady mentioned that the occupants of the purple (burgundy) car in the parking lot had opened their doors before the incident began. 

Grand Juror  Did you see anybody else outside -- in the parking lot, in that building or grassy area in front of the parking lot -- during the shooting?

Brady  As a matter of fact, yeah. There was another, purple car sitting on the parking lot already, and that person told me he saw the whole thing. That one person was already outside.

Grand Juror  Was that a male or female?

Brady  A male and female. ..... They saw when the officer pulled, when he first pulling up to the street to them [Brown and Johnson].

He [the Bonneville occupant] happen to be outside with his girlfriend. They was just in the car with their feet up, with the doors open.

[Pages 53 - 54]

In the above passage, the final words about the purple car -- with the doors open -- explain why Brady had noticed that car too when he looked out his bedroom window. Both the white Monte Carlo and the purple-burgundy Bonneville had their doors open.