WeCopwatch is reporting for Indybay from Ferguson, Missouri, where on August 9 a Ferguson police officer shot down and murdered 18-year-old local resident Michael Brown in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses. After days of protests and violent racist attacks by police against demonstrators, the focus has shifted to the police cover-up of the murder. After previously refusing to release the incident report on the shooting and the name of the shooting officer, Ferguson police have finally released his name, Darren Williams, but instead of releasing their report on the shooting, they ramped up a smear campaign against Mike Brown and released a different police report that claims Mike Brown shoplifted from a local convenience store shortly before he was killed. Police also have claimed that Mike Brown reached into Darren Williams’ patrol car and tried to grab the officers’s gun. Multiple witnesses, however, contradict this police story.

At least three non-police witnesses have come forward to tell virtually the same version of events, that officer Darren Williams pulled up to and harassed Mike Brown as he walked in the street, reaching out of the patrol car window to grab Mike Brown and then shooting Mike Brown once from within the car. As Mike Brown and a friend ran away, Darren Williams jumped out of his car and proceeded to shoot Mike Brown in the back. When Mike Brown turned around to face the officer with his hands in the air, Darren Williams continued to shoot repeatedly until Mike Brown lay dying in the street. No medical services were rendered to Mike Brown until at least thirty minutes after the shooting, by which time it was too late to save him, and police let his body lay in the street for hours.

In a town that is 67% African American, and constantly the subject of racist police stops and citations by a Ferguson police department made of up 53 officers, of whom only three are African American, the community is outraged by the murder.

Updates from Ferguson: NLG Legal Observer Arrested While Documenting Ongoing Police Violence in Ferguson | Is This What A Jammed Phone Sounds Like? (Kill Switch in Ferguson?) | Donate to Get Copwatch Cameras for Ferguson - more cameras are needed to document police | Who Are The Real Outside Agitators in Ferguson? | ACLU Asks Col Replogle to Remove Inappropriate Officer in Ferguson | What a stupid excuse for arresting reporters | Photos From Ferguson (Aug 18) | NLG Strongly Objects to Oppressive and Discriminatory Law Enforcement Tactics in Ferguson | Amnesty International USA Calls for Investigation of Police Tactics in Ferguson | Police Gas Residents of Ferguson For Over an Hour (Aug 17) | Ferguson: State Of Emergency! Demonstrators Shot and Gassed! (Aug 16) | Photos From Ferguson (Aug 16) | Ferguson: New Police Practices are Window Dressing To a Systemic Failure (Aug 15) | Images From Ferguson (Aug 15) | Ferguson Police's PR Stunt Poisons Independent and Impartial Investigation | WeCopwatch live reports from Ferguson, Missouri (Aug 15) | Amnesty International Sends Human Rights Delegation to Ferguson, Missouri | Police in Ferguson to the Media: "We Don't Want You Here" |