1) I was in the bedroom and I hear an altercation outside. I happens to look out the window and see the young guy [Michael Brown] was at the Ferguson police car on the passenger window and see some arms exchanged. [By the word arms, Brady meant limbs, not weapons.]
2) That's when I call my fiancée for her to look out the window, and that's when I ran into the front outside [i.e. through the front door onto the balcony].
3) And that's when I see -- actually it was two guys -- when the guy [Brown] ... ran down in the middle of the street.
4) The officer [Wilson] just gets out the car and shoots. I thought it was six
times.
5) When he [Wilson] hit [Brown with bullets] -- I guess when he [Wilson] hit [Brown] the first and the second time -- the guy [Brown] stopped and turned around facing the officer.
6) He [Brown] bent down, a little bit curled up, and the officer [Wilson] let out three, maybe four, more shots to the guy [Brown], and that's when he [Brown] hit the ground. ...
7) He [Brown] actually had a friend [Johnson]. I just seen him [Johnson] duck down [at] a car. They had a car door open. it was a white car. He hopped in.
8) I guess those two cars left.
[Page 1]In this first statement, Brady did not explain the expression "two cars" (paragraph 8), but in later statements he said he thought a purple car followed the white Monte Carlo away from the scene.
Already in this first statement, Brady made a major mistake which he continued to repeat in all his later statements. He thought that Wilson began shooting many bullets -- as many as six -- at Brown's back as soon as he got around his police vehicle (paragraph 4). Brady surmised that a couple of those bullets hit Brown in the back and eventually caused Brown to turn around and face Wilson.
That first interview ended at 4:43 p.m. Two minutes later Brady asked the detective to record a follow-up statement to clarify the sequence of events. This second interview lasted from 4:45 to 4:47 p.m. Now Brady corrected himself, clarifying that he stayed by bedroom window until after the first two gunshots were fired. At the bedroom window, Brady heard two gunshots fired from inside the police vehicle. Brady saw Brown run away before Wilson fired the second of those gunshots.
1) When I was at the [bedroom] window, I saw the altercation.
2) The guy [Brown] ran.
3) I heard the shooting.
4) That's when I saw the cop gets out the car. ... I heard the shots first [before Wilson got out of the car].
5) I was still at the [bedroom] window. That [when I was at the bedroom window] is when he [Wilson] got out of the car and I heard the shots.
6) That [hearing the shots and seeing Wilson get out of the police vehicle] is what drew me to go outside [from the bedroom to the balcony] so I could see what's going on.
7) I guess the guy [Brown] did get hit [by bullets], because he turned around, back towards facing the cop, walking back towards him slow, curled up.
8) He [Wilson] let go three, four shots back at him. ... That's when he [Brown] hit the ground.
[Page 1]Paragraph 4 indicates that a couple of gunshots were fired before Wilson got out of his police vehicle. Paragraphs 2 and 3 indicate that Brown ran away from the police vehicle before some of the "shooting".
Paragraph 5 indicates that the first two gunshots were fired and Wilson got out of the police vehicle while Brady remained at the bedroom window. This clarification was the reason why he asked the detective to record this second statement. (Brady realized that his first statement made an erroneous impression that he left the bedroom window before the first two gunshots.)
This second statement's sequence of events is correct, although Brady tells it in a confusing manner. The corrected sequence of events:
1) Wilson fires some gunshots before he gets out of the police vehicle.
2) Brown runs away from the police vehicle.
3) Wilson fires the final gunshot from inside the police vehicle.
The corrected sequence of events omits any hint that Wilson "just gets out the car and shoots. I thought it was six times." Furthermore, Brady now indicates that he was moving from the bedroom window to the balcony during the time that Wilson began shooting the final series of gunshots in the area (far from the police vehicle) where Brown fell dead. That sequence too is correct.
After Brady provided this corrected sequence of events in this second statement, the detective asked for some further clarifications. Unfortunately, Brady reverted to his initial mistaken narrative that Wilson got out of his police vehicle and immediately fired multiple gunshots -- albeit the number was reduced from six to two -- at Brown's back while Brady still was looking through the bedroom window. Brady thought that one or both of those bullets hit Brown in the back.
Detective So I can clarify -- When you're in your bedroom window, the officer's still in the [police] car?[Brady misunderstood the question. Brady thought the detective asked whether Wilson remained inside the police vehicle for the entire time that Brady was looking out the bedroom window.]
Brady No, no. He [Wilson] wasn't in it [the police vehicle that entire time]. He [Wilson] hopped out then [when I still was looking out the bedroom window]. He [Wilson] hopped out after the guy [Brown] ran from his [vehicle's] window.
Detective When did you hear the first two gunshots? You said you heard gunshots.
Brady I was in the [bedroom] window.
Detective Where was the officer at that point [when you heard the first two gunshots]?
Brady He was still in the car. That's when I saw the altercation -- when it [the altercation] was happening and the guys [Brown and Johnson] ran.
That [when the guys ran] is when he [Wilson] immediately hopped out the car and did his first two shots. ....
That's when I need to go outside. That's when I went outside [to the balcony].
And obviously he [Brown] got hit and he was curled up and kinda like walking towards him [Wilson] just a little bit.
And he [Wilson] let go three or four more shots, and that's when he [Brown] hit the ground.
[Page 2]
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In his second statement, Brady did not make any corrections about the first statement's remark that he saw Johnson hop into the Monte Carlo.
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Immediately after Michael Brady provided his two statements to the detective, Fiancée Brady provided a statement to the detective:
Detective Okay. Can you tell me in your own words, um, where you were and when you were made aware of the situation and then what you witnessed when you did look.
Fiancee Brady
1) I was in my kitchen eating on the phone with my little sister and my fiance yelled from the bedroom, "Baby, look out the window. They're shooting."
2) I run to my patio and look out the window [sliding glass door].. As I'm looking [from my living room, through the vertical blinds] out my window, I see an African-American gentleman running away from a Caucasian officer.
3) The Caucasian officer was walking behind him [Brown] steady, opening fire, shooting. ....[Brown passed out of her view, which was blocked by another apartment building. Wilson paused and stopped walking for a moment. Michael still is fussing about his cell phone inside the apartment, so she tells him what she is seeing.]
4) I asked my fiance -- I said, "Well, I guess the guy [Brown] got away, because I don't see him [Wilson] walking anymore."
5) The next thing I know, I see the African-American guy [Brown] walking back down, facing the Caucasian officer.
6) I opens up my front door and go out on my patio.
7) I see the Caucasian officer steady, opening fire, aiming at the African-American guy's chest area.
8) While standing there looking, I assumed that they [Wilson] had tased him [Brown], and he [Brown] just was resisting. He [Brown] wasn't going down.[Michael still is fussing about his cell phone inside the apartment, so she continues to tell him what she is seeing. She is seeing Wilson shooting, but Brown not reacting. She tells Michael that she thinks Wilson is shooting a taser, not an actual gun.]
Then when I talked to my fiance, he said that it was actually gunshots.[Michael comes through the front door out onto the balcony and sees that Brown is reacting -- clutching his abdomen and beginning to fall. Michael tells her that Wilson is not merely tasing, but rather is shooting actual bullets]
9) Maybe he [Wilson] shot him [Brown] two more times and that's when the guy [Brown] tipped over. The officer walked up, shot him three more times and the dude just tipped over head first, and his head smashed into the pavement.
In her first statement, Fiancee Brady did not say anything about Johnson getting into the Monte Carlo. She had just heard, however, Michael Brady tell the detective that Johnson had done so, so she did not have to repeat that detail in her own statement.
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