Michael Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, has responded to police officer Darren Wilson’s first interview following a grand jury’s decision not to indict him in the death of the unarmed teen and slammed Wilson’s comments as “disrespectful.”
Before Brown’s parents sat down for an interview on the Today show many people criticized Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for what seemed to be a shocking lack of compassion during his interview with ABC News.
Brown’s mother shared the same sentiments as these critics and also added that she didn’t “believe a word” of Wilson’s version of events.
McSpadden said that Wilson’s interview only added “insult to injury” and was simply “disrespectful.”
“I know my son far too well to know he wouldn’t ever do anything like that,” McSpadden said during an interview with CBS This Morning “He wouldn’t do anything to provoke anyone to do anything to him, and he wouldn’t do anything to anybody.”
The slain teenager’s father, Michael Brown Sr., questioned the version of events that depicted his son as an incredibly violent young man.
“For one, my son, he respected law enforcement,” Brown Sr. added. “Two, who in their right mind would rush or charge at a police officer that has his gun drawn? It sounds crazy.”
The only explanation for what happened, according to McSpadden, is that officer Wilson was simply too intent on firing his weapon that day.
“He didn’t do what he had to do, he did what he wanted to do,” McSpadden said. “I don’t think he wanted to kill my son, but he wanted to kill someone.”
The comments came after Wilson’s interview with ABC News aired and revealed the officer claiming he would do it all over again if he had to and that he had a clear conscience after the incident.
“I don’t think it’s haunting,” Wilson said. “It’s always going to be something that happened. The reason I have a clear conscience is that I know I did my job right.”
Wilson’s interview focused heavily on the fact that the officer claims he was terrified by Brown and intimidated by his size.
“I just know there was a barrage of swinging and grabbing and pulling for about 10 seconds,” Wilson said. “I reached out my window with my right hand to grab on to his forearm…I just felt the immense power that he had. And then the way I’ve described it is, it was like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan. That’s just how big this man was.”
Many have pointed out that Wilson and Brown were about the same height although Brown did outweigh the officer.
Meanwhile, the family’s attorney just hopes the country stays focused on the issue at hand.
“When you have people of color being killed they try to demonize and play on the stereotypes, and they try to put the police officer who killed our children on a pedestal,” Crump told Today’s Savannah Guthrie. “It’s just not right, and we have to fix this system.”
