“didn’t the police chief say Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson didn’t know about the robbery/assault at the time of the FIRST confrontation?”
That’s my understanding. But does it strike you as believable that an officer in a patrol car wouldn’t hear and note a radio call about a robbery right near his position, even if he was not personally designated to respond?
Wilson was just off a response to a medical issue. That is why the ambulance was so close.
Once the thug pushed the cop back into the police car the cop knew all he needed to know. Whether or not he knew about the robbery is irrelevant at that point.
He might not have heard the description of the suspects, or anything beyond “two black males” but I would think he definitely would have heard about the robbery.
I don’t know if some police departments might dispatch some calls using the responding officer’s cell phones, to avoid listeners-in.
It’s possible. I listen the my local CT State PD troop, which uses CSP state-wide trunk radio system. Each troop has two channels for example, “33 C DISP 1” and “34 C DISP 2”, plus access to various TAC channels.
Normally all troopers in Troop C use “33 C DISP 1”, however if they get a call that gets multiple troopers over several locations, such as a domestic where the parties have separated or something with heavy traffic, the dispatcher will tell all units not on that first call to use “34 C DISP 2,” which becomes the new primary dispatch channel until the first incident is cleared.
Heard the call while making first contact.