A lawyer for the family of Michael Brown on Wednesday said Officer Darren Wilson changed his story on what happened during the shooting of the 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9 and reiterated criticism of the process surrounding the grand jury proceedings in the case.
“He did what he wanted to do, not what he had to do,” attorney Anthony Gray said of Officer Wilson, saying that the officer changed his version of events.
So why did the grand jury believe him? Mr. Gray was asked on CNN’s “New Day.”
“Because they didn’t have him cross-examined…he was able to just go and just tell his story freely - there was no hard-hitting questions, the inconsistencies that I see between the three statements that he made, nobody pointed them out,” Mr. Gray said.
In a new interview with ABC News, Officer Wilson said Brown charged him and went for his gun, saying that he has a clear conscience and that he would not have done anything differently that day.
The announcement this week that a grand jury did not find sufficient evidence to charge Officer Wilson, who is white, with a crime for shooting Brown, with is black, reignited racial tensions and sparked protests in the community and across the country.
Mr. Gray also blasted the grand jury proceedings and the fact that prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch did not recommend specific charges.
“And then there’s no recommendation to charge him with anything - you put in front of a grand jury a list of charges and you don’t suggest which one matches the case you want to bring?” he said. “Everybody knows if you don’t make a recommendation to a grand jury, that’s an indication that you shouldn’t indict, and they took the cue from the prosecutor as the way it was given to ’em.”
In announcing the grand jury decision Monday, Mr. McCulloch said a review of the evidence identified a “lack of accurate detail” in some of the early reports about the incident and that the grand jury deserved credit for sticking with evidence after wading through conflicting eyewitness accounts.
“They are the only people who have heard and examined all of the evidence of all of the witnesses,” Mr. McCulloch said.
But Mr. Gray also labeled the process a “data dump.”
“It was just ’give you every and anything we can think of, even…stuff that’s irrelevant,’” he said. “I don’t get this data dump technique, putting all this information out there, most of which is irrelevant, and then you say, ’you guys decide which one of the four charges you have an option to do, you decide if any of this fits.’”
“Quite naturally, they’re going to say, ’I’m totally confused,’” he said.
Mr. Gray said they’re now looking to an ongoing federal investigation into the matter.
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