ALSO SEE: Newly Released Video Casts Doubt on Darren Wilson's Injuries
ALSO SEE: US Cities Brace for Protests After Ferguson Decision

Michael Brown Shooting: Darren Wilson Radio Call Segment Missing

By Jon Swaine, Guardian UK

19 November 14

Police have no record of officer calling ‘shots fired, send all cars’ with accidental change of radio channel given as reason

call for backup that a police officer claims to have made seconds before he killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, reportedly cannot be found in police recordings. The officer blames the problem on his radio.

Darren Wilson has told investigators he radioed “shots fired, send all cars” after a struggle at his SUV with Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, following the officer’s stop of Brown and a friend for jaywalking in Ferguson on 9 August, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

Yet a set of recordings released to the newspaper by police did not include the call. Wilson is reported to have stated that “during the struggle his radio had been jarred and the channel changed”, meaning it was not broadcast to his fellow officers in the St Louis suburb.

“At least one channel on the Ferguson police radio is ‘receive-only,’ meaning that the call may not have been broadcast,” the newspaper said in its report on Friday evening. Wilson shot Brown repeatedly soon after allegedly making the request for assistance.

A series of witnesses told media in the days after the shooting that Brown had surrendered to the officer after fleeing and may have had his hands up. Wilson is said to have told investigators the 18-year-old had in fact turned and charged towards him.

The killing of Brown, who was African American, by a white officer led to nights of protests. Police clashed repeatedly with demonstrators, firing teargas and rubber bullets and making dozens of arrests. Ferguson is anxiously awaiting the decision of a grand jury on whether Wilson should face criminal charges for the shooting.

There was confusion over Wilson’s future on Saturday, after Ferguson’s police chief, Thomas Jackson, initially told a local TV news channel the officer would be able to return to duty if not indicted by the grand jury, before later saying the department had not decided whether to allow this.

Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles, also appeared to dismiss Jackson’s earlier claim. “Nothing has been decided as to the fate of Wilson,” the mayor told the Wall Street Journal, adding that “it is an oversimplification of the issue to say he immediately returns”.

The new details of the day Brown died emerged in material released by police in response to an open records request. The recordings, the first of Wilson’s voice to be made public, trace the 28-year-old officer’s movements from a separate incident to his encounter with Brown.

After a robbery of cigars from a grocery store was reported over the radio, Wilson – identified as car 21 – asked colleagues dealing with it if he could assist around noon. “Twenty-one to 25 and 22 – do you guys need me?” he asked. About two minutes later, he said over his radio: “Put me on Canfield with two. And send me another car.” Canfield Drive is the street on which Brown was shot dead.

While it is unclear from the recording, Wilson has reportedly testified that at this point he asked Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, to get out of the road, and then realised that Brown matched the description given for one of the grocery store robbers. During the next minute a rapper going by the name Thee Pharoah tweeted that he had witnessed the killing.

In remarks to the media in August, Ferguson’s police chief, Thomas Jackson, initially suggested Wilson had stopped Brown for this reason. Within hours he said the stop was not linked to the robbery, then finally said Wilson had made the connection during the encounter. Police have said Brown assaulted Wilson at the car and injured his face.

The alleged injuries to Wilson’s face were not clearly visible in video footage also released by the police on Friday.

The recordings show Wilson leaving the Ferguson police department headquarters for a hospital about two hours after the shooting and returning two and a half hours later. Wilson was accompanied by a lawyer and other officers.