Cop’s Fear, Wavering Witnesses Spur Grand Jury Decision
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Dorian Johnson said he was surprised when Big Mike grabbed the cigarillos on that hot Saturday in August, shoving a store clerk as he made for the exit. He hadn’t known the teenager long, Johnson told grand jurors, but “he didn’t strike me as a person who would do anything like that.”
The two had walked to the Ferguson Market in the morning because they wanted to smoke some pot, Johnson said, and needed the narrow, thin cigars to roll the blunts. Michael Brown -- everybody called him Big Mike -- had graduated from high school and was about to head to college, and Johnson said they talked about the future. Then his buddy stole the cigarillos.