Featured Post

The white-Left Part 1: The two meanings of white

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Officer Darren Wilson fired 10 shots at Michael Brown in 6.5 seconds

As was bound to happen in our age of ubiquitous electronic gadgets, an audio recording has turned up that appears to have captured the distinct sound of the gunfire that killed Michael Brown. After having worked with the audio from the YouTube video below to isolate and time the sound of the bullets, I am quite confident that this is a true recording of that night and what it reveals is a total of 14 shots fired in less than 6.5 seconds.

A half second after the first shot was fired, there was a staccato of 9 shots fire in 1.252 seconds followed by a pause of more than 3 seconds which was then followed by 4 shots fired in just over 3 seconds. Of particular interest is the very first shot which reverberates on the timeline for 0.25 seconds as compared it the almost instantaneous snap of the other shots. That would seem to lend credence to the claim that the first shot was fired in the car. Beyond that I will make no attempt to interpret the data that I am presenting here. However I do believe that if this is a true recording of the sounds of Officer Darren Wilson gunning down Michael Brown, then we now have very precise information on how many shots where fired and their timing.

My data points:

Secs.into clip        Shot No.
1.6920001
2.0755932
2.2280163
2.4447794
2.5839135
2.7296726
2.8638377
2.9963468
3.1371369
3.32761710
6.34549511
7.27802212
7.59273013
8.03663314

This is the YouTube video from which I took the audio:



This is a screen print of the Open Source Audacity audio program which I used to analysis and time the video:


This is a close up of the first shot:


These are the facts, those stubborn things!

UPDATE: It has been reported that the Ferguson PD standard issue is a SIG Sauer 2022 .40 which uses a 12 round magazine. This gun is also popular with Navy SEALs and Special Forces. Allowing for a round in the chamber, that would mean a maximum load of 13 rounds fired without reloading so it is possible I am wrong on the count and counted some echoes as shots. It is also possible that Officer Wilson reloaded in the three second interval. It has also been said that the first shot was not recorded. If that is the case it would have happened at least 3.48 seconds before the first recorded shot because the released audio tape shows no shots in that period.

It should also be mentioned that SIG makes a high-capacity magazine for this gun that holds 15 .40 rounds.  

Also see my Some thoughts on Michael Brown & the Law in St. Louis

UPDATE 2: I have re-examined the graphic of the audio evidence in light of CNN's audio experts count of 10 shots and now agree with him, a total of to shots are heard on the clip. I now believe the audio peaks I have marked at 2, 4, 6 & 8 on the above graphic were echoes of the preceding shots and not new shots.

1 comment:

  1. The number of shots is irrelevant: either it was self defense and he had a right to shoot at Mike Brown, in which case no amount of bullets is legally considered "excessive", or he had no right to shoot and even one shot fired will get him a murder conviction. The media is just dissecting the number of bullet shots and this ridiculous video in order to get more ratings and make it seem like the justification of the shooting has a blurrier line than it actually does.

    http://writingtheleftunsaid.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete