am i remembering correctly? he said it was just because they were not walking on the sidewalk.

also the redness on his face. it was said immediately. he opened the door, hit brown and came back in the side of his face.

not heard about the robbery.

Ferguson Chief Jackson initially said that Wilson did not stop Johnson and Brown because of the robbery, although Jackson subsequently modified his account slightly that same day, IIRC. Jackson initially said that Wilson stopped Brown and Johnson because the two were walking in the middle of the street and did not move to the sidewalk as Wilson demanded.

Johnson's testimony reads truthfully about what Wilson said and did. And Johnson's testimony makes absolutely clear that Wilson said NOTHING about the robbery, either during his initial encounter with Johnson and Brown nor when he suddenly reversed his car recklessly and parked at an angle across Canfield.

Johnson is telling the truth and Wilson is a stone-cold killer (and liar). I can now feel it in my bones.

ring of truth to them. (I have not read Wilson's testimony yet, but from what I've read about it, it sounds like poorly-written pulp fiction, Turner Diaries style.)

but seeing Johnson interviewed caused me to think and feel he has been telling it straight.

believes Wilson, then Johnson must be a liar. I'm telling you, right now, reading Johnson's testimony, I lean heavily towards the former. Wilson is a flat-out liar and Johnson is telling the truth. (Johnson almost makes it sound like the very first time the gun discharged was almost accidental, as Wilson was in the midst of threatening to shoot when the gun went off.)

I feel really badly for Mr. Johnson, in addition to all the other sadness I feel.

Protesters were at LAPD HQ last night, and marching on the 110 this morning.

until Monday at the earliest if they cannot make $500 bail.

I'm really mad at LA right now.

repeat crucial facts over and over, and Johnson is pretty consistent.

I have not read Wilson's testimony.

Johnson makes it clear that in his opinion, Wilson and Brown were both angry.

Wilson opened the car door and hit Brown. I can't imagine any reason that Johnson would make that fact up.

It is really troubling that these transcripts have been made public when a civil or other trial has not been ruled out. Johnson had no attorney present. There was no attorney to object to the questions asked.

I understand that there was a lot of pressure to release these transcripts and evidence. But remember. The grand jury proceeding is not a trial. There is no attorney opposing the prosecution and objecting to evidence that might not, probably would not be admitted into a trial.

I understand why the transcripts have been released. But we have an adversarial trial system for a reason, and the examinations in front of the grand jury are not adversarial. The examiner was testing Johnson, trying to find contradictions in his testimony, trying to get Johnson to contradict himself. But Johnson is pretty consistent. Yet it does not sound as if Johnson memorized a scenario that did not happen.

There is a huge cultural divide between the examining prosecutor and Johnson. Johnson's attitude toward the police and toward Brown's theft of the cigarillos seems to be incomprehensible to the prosecutor. That is a symptom of the cultural divide between the poor in America and the middle class. Quite interesting. I had the sense that the prosecutor did not understand how Johnson viewed the police cars as sort of dangers to stay away from. The cultural divide is so wide as to be too difficult to overcome. That is the bigger problem in America that this case reveals.

It reminds me of the arrest of a young kid in my sideyard -- a boy of Central American descent -- and the disconnect between the boy's view of the officers, my view of the arrest and the officers' slightly sadistic attitude during the arrest. Three very divergent world views that were impossible to reconcile.

so far of how and why the proximity between Wilson and Brown was initiated and escalated so quickly. I totally agree with you that Wilson's ego was the motivating factor for this travesty. He was going to be bowed down to one way or another. Because Wilson pulled so closely, I can see how the teenager might have felt that he had to take it upon himself to keep from being shot for no reason and how his actions might have been instinctive to protect himself.

edit: thanks for posting this. Bookmarked.

hit Brown prior to the serious confrontation. Does anyone who has read Wilson's testimony know whether that was mentioned?

That was a petty, incendiary thing to do. I think Johnson is telling the truth about that most likely because it is a detail that is rather neutral and would not be something that a person like Johnson would think up. That's just my opinion.

Which is a laughable claim, and far less believable than Johnson's version.

Wilson begins his whole account with a lie, saying that he politely asked Brown and Johnson to move toward the sidewalk. Johnson states that Wilson barked "Get the fuck on the sidewalk" at them.

Which is the more believable account? Come on.

If we don't believe that Wilson politely suggested that these two guys use the sidewalk, then Wilson is lying. If we believe that the initial exchange sounded much more like what Dorian Johnson describes ("Get the fuck on the sidewalk&quot , then Johnson is telling the truth. When does Wilson stop lying, if he starts off with an obvious and self-serving lie? How are we to believe him on the big events, if he's willing to lie even about the little events?

Wilson is a liar. His testimony is ridiculous. He reversed into these two kids because they lipped off to him, and he was going to teach them a lesson. Instead, he taught us all a lesson.

at least how they initially went down.

Re: Wilson's testimony that Brown looked like some 'demon,' I'm only a layperson when it comes to psychology, but the first thing that came to my mind when reading Johnson's account of the encounter is that, if anyone were demonic in the exchange, it was Wilson. (I think psycholgoists refer to this phenomeon as 'projection.')

The way Johnson describes Wilson's arm coming through the window and grabbing Brown by the throat (and\or shirt necksleeve) is positively chilling. In Johnson's telling, Wilson comes off as a crazed psychopath. It is some of the most chilling 'non-fiction' (assuming Johnson isn't spinning a grand fiction) I have ever read. And it makes me feel really badly for Johnson. He lived through a moment of utter terror and now his life has been irretrievably changed by it forever.

accounts? When someone does that, sadly, his credibility is called into question. Knowing that, I don't know if I would have believed anything he said, if I had been on the grand jury.