After the release of the grand jury verdict rejecting indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown, President Obama took to the microphones. “We need to recognize that this is not just an issue for Ferguson, this is an issue for America,” he said. “[T]here are still problems and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up.”
Obama was wrong, at least in the case of Darren Wilson. In viewing thousands of pages of FBI interviews and grand jury testimony, it becomes eminently clear that many members of the local community did make up the story about Michael Brown being executed by Wilson – and pressured others to lie to police or keep silent.
According to the St. Louis County Police Investigative Report, the mob mentality took root almost immediately after the shooting. By the time detectives arrived at the scene of the incident, there was “a large crowd of bystanders and a large uniformed police presence at the scene when detectives arrived.” That crowd included both Brown’s mother and his stepfather, according to witness testimony. The police report states, “Many individuals were clearly upset and were expressing their frustration, by at times yelling obscenities and threats, and attempting to encroach on the crime scene itself.”
It got worse:
As the scene investigation continued, there were several large groups of hostile individuals around the perimeter of the crime scene. The investigation of the scene was interrupted several times by death threats directed toward police officers and gunshots being fired by an unknown persons around the crime scene.
According to the police report, a bevy of witnesses described intimidation from the local community, as well as falsification of testimony. One witness initially told police she didn’t want to “get involved for fear of retaliation.” She said, “I don’t know these people. I have to live here.”
Another female witness told police, “I don’t know nothin’.”
An adult male near the scene “commented to detectives as they walked by that he witnessed the incident and the officer was ‘in the right’ and ‘did what he had to do.’ He added the statements being made by bystanders in the complex were inaccurate. The detectives momentarily stopped to speak with the male who was clearly uncomfortable speaking with detectives. The male indicated he was not making any further comments or identifying himself.”
