Mr. Johnson did. He used the descriptives "ricocheted" and "bounced", which imply distance. Why didn't he just say, he couldn't open his door? But Mr. Johnson says the two of them were assaulted by a door. Natural instinct when someone starts to open a car door is to move away - even more so after being hit by that door. But they didn't, neither one of them, even though Mr. Johnson alleged the officer may have been hostile in that he "reversed his … car in a manner to where it almost hit us."
do you see why Mr. Johnson confuses me a bit? a detail is missing.
I agree with you, bring on the forensics.
Here — scoutmaster’s source may help:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3191948/posts?page=120#120
I believe in this case, the ‘assault’ on the officer involved the police cruiser’s door. When the officer backed up, he opened his cruiser door and attempted to exit and confront the men. Did he do so slowly and deliberately, or quickly?...
I need to check my sources, but I believe one of the official stories stated that Brown used the cruiser door to strike the officer and knock him back toward the cruiser.
The ‘eyewitness’ stories are that, after backing up, the officer flung the cruiser door open as he attempted to quickly exit the cruiser, and the door struck Brown and bounced back (as it would, with a kid the size of Brown). It could be that Brown helped that bounce, but I can also imagine the policeman striking Brown with the door and the door bouncing back.
The ‘eyewitness’ story is that the policeman then drew his handgun, put Brown in a headlock with his other arm, and pulled Brown back to the car.
Allegedly, the police officer accidentally discharged the weapon as Brown was struggling to get out of the headlock - with no fight over the weapon.