FERGUSON, Mo. — During an exclusive interview with ABC News, Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson stated that he believed teenager Michael Brown appeared to be demon-possessed the night to the got into an altercation that resulted in Brown’s shooting death.
“That moment before the second shot, you guys are staring at each other, and you said that there was a look in his eye like something you’ve never seen before. You described it as a demon,” ABC’s George Stephanopolous said to Wilson during the interview this week.
“It was a very intense image he was presenting,” Wilson replied, nodding.
“A demon?” Stephanopolous asked.
“Very intense,” Wilson repeated, nodding.
“And what did you think was going on in his mind? Why do you choose the word demon?” Stephanopoulous inquired.
“I don’t really know what was going on,” Wilson replied. “I was just shocked by the whole interaction. It escalated so quickly from a simple request to now a fight for survival. And it still doesn’t make sense to me why someone would act in that way and be so mad instantly and be so aggressive instantly.”
“And so, you’re staring at each other [and] you see this demon,” Stephanopoulos said moments later. “What did you think he was going to do?”
“I was prepared for the worst,” Wilson replied. “When he came back at me, I thought, ‘He’s going to punch me til I’m dead or take my gun and shoot me with it. He’s already tried it once.'”
Stephanopoulos was referring to Wilson’s testimony to the grand jury this summer, during which he testified that the only way he could describe Brown’s demeanor was demonic.
“I looked at his face. It was just, like, intense,” he told the jury. “It was very aggravated, aggressive, hostile. You could tell he was looking through you. There was nothing he was seeing.”
“He had the most intense, aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked,” Wilson continued. “I just saw his hands up, I don’t know if they were closed yet, on the way to going closed—I saw this and that face coming at me again, and I just went like this and I shielded my face.”
The officer told Stephanopoulos that even when Brown had been struck by the first few bullets, “he was almost bulking up to run through the shots.”
“The face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn’t even there, I wasn’t even anything in his way,” he said.
Wilson said that he began backing up upon observing Brown’s demeanor, “because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me.”
“I just felt the immense power that he had,” he stated. “The only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.”
More ABC US news | ABC World News