St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch decided to immediately release as much evidence as possible to the general public immediately after the decision not to indict Darren Wilson:
http://apps.stlpublicradio.org/ferguson-project/evidence.html
Was this an attempt to be completely transparent? Or cynically, was this an attempt to further step away for taking responsibility for the duties of his office? Rather than make the decision and have it clearly on his office, and largely him, he offloaded it to a grand jury who we will never meet. Additionally, by releasing the information to people that don't typically look at this information, and allowing them to make their own decisions, it increases the amount of noise on the discussion, further diluting his role in all of this. That's the cynical way to look at it.
One piece from the packet of interest, is Darren Wilson's testimony.
Start here, then jump ahead to page 197: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/11/24/darren_wilson_testimony_ferguson_police_officer_testimony_in_michael_brown.html
Some observations from reading through it:
1) He did hear about the basics of the robbery, but was not directly responding to it.
2) He did appear to put himself in a situation where he was being punched in his own vehicle. By his own admission, he only took two punches, but that was enough for him to consider alternate scenarios (mace, flashlight) only to settle for pulling his gun at close quarters.
3) Despite these injuries that made him fear that he would be knocked unconscious quickly, the jury had trouble determining from the photographs presented where he was swelling.
4) After shots were fired, he radioed it in. After the incident, he found out that somehow his radio was on a different channel entirely, so no one heard him report it.
5) He admitted to cocking the gun and shooting it without looking or aiming, just in a general direction.
6) It was important for him not to be singled out by not being asked to sit in the car. He was allowed to leave the scene.
7) Also interesting that despite his earlier fears of the punches, he had to be told to go to the hospital to get checked out after arriving at the station.
Here's Dorian Johnson's testimony:
Some observations here:
1) Dorian says that he did most of the initial talking when Darren Wilson pulled up.
2) He describes their altercation as a tug of war. Punches are thrown.
3) He described Darren Wilson's request to get off the street and to the sidewalk as a father figure talking to a son.
4) The grand jury here repeatedly asked Dorian to confirm answers that he's already made.
5) Dorian's account is disturbing because if true, it makes Darren Wilson sound like the Terminator, in how he walked up and just shot him.
Transparency.
-- wake.eat.sleep