The circumstances under which Michael Brown died on August 9th are in dispute. According to the police, Brown was shot while fighting the officer for his gun. Some witnesses on the other hand say Mr. Brown’s hands were in the air when the last shots were fired.
Other accounts by witnesses seem to concur that the struggle began in Mr. Wilson’s patrol car. Mr. Brown was apparently leaning in through the window, when Mr. Wilson’s firearm went off inside the car. Mr. Brown was then shot as he tried to run away, the officer then ran out of his car and fired at him. Mr. Brown then stopped and turned around to face Mr. Wilson.
Accounts of what transpired differ after that, some witnesses are saying that Mr. Brown approached the officer in a seemingly threatening manner, when he was shot. Others claim he was not moving and might have had his in the air when he was killed.
The F.B.I. has since opened an inquiry into the shooting. The St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch is handling the case locally even with calls to have it shifted to a special prosecutor. A county grand jury began the hearing on Wednesday.
If charges are filed against Wilson, the next phase will involve presenting evidence to the grand jury. It goes to the grand jury, and if a grand jury indicts, an arrest will be made. Opinions differ on what the charge will be, some seem to think that there are no grounds for a first or second degree murder charge claiming that the facts are incomplete and the best they would do was manslaughter while others were of the opinion that there would be a decent second degree murder charge because the standard would then be whether the killing was done knowingly or not.