Transcribed portions from the interviewWILSON: I said, "Hey come here for a minute." That's when he said, "What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" and slammed the door shut on me.

STEPHANOPOLOS: He slammed the door shut?

WILSON: Yes. I used my door to try to push him back, and yell at him to get back. And, again, he just pushed the door shut and stares at me. And, as I look back at him, all of a sudden, punches start flying.

STEPHANOPOLOS: He threw the first punch?

WILSON: Yes. He threw the first punch and hit me in the left side of my face.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Because, you know, some of the witnesses have said that they said that they saw you try to pull him into the car.

WILSON: That would be against every training ever taught to any law enforcement officer. I don't know what or how many hit me after that. I just know that there was a ? of swinging and grabbing and pulling for about 10 seconds.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And then what?

WILSON: I had reached out of the window with my right hand to grab onto his forearm, because I was going to try to move him back and get out of the car to him. I'm the one in the corner trapped. [?] the immense power that he had. I mean, the way I've described it, it's like a 5-year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan. That's just how big this man was.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Hulk Hogan?

WILSON: He was very large. Very powerful man.

STEPHANOPOLOS: You're a pretty big guy.

WILSON: Yeah. I'm above average.
STEPHANOPOLOS: So, you try to grab him, but you feel that force.

WILSON: Yes. And then, as I'm holding him, I see him coming back around with his left hand, and it's in the shape like this and it comes and-- through the window-- and just a solid punch to the right side of my face.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And you're still sitting there figuring out, "How do I get out of this?"

WILSON: Yes. I mean, the next thing was, "How do I survive?"

STEPHANOPOLOS: How do you survive?

WILSON: Yes. I didn't know if I could withstand another hit like that.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Where's your gun at that point?

WILSON: I keep it on my right hip. I take it out, I come out, and I point it at him. And what I said was, "Get back or I'm going to shoot you." And then, his response, immediately, he grabbed the top of my gun. And when he grabbed it, he said, "You're too much of a pussy to shoot me." And when he doing that, I can feel his hand trying to come over my hand and get inside the trigger guard and try and shoot me with my own gun. And that's when I pulled the trigger for the first time.

STEPHANOPOLOS: What happened?

WILSON: It didn't go off. The gun was actually being jammed by his hand on top of the firearm. So I tried again. And, again, another click. And this time, I-- "This has to work, or I'm going to be dead. He's going to get this gun away from me. Something's going to happen and I'm going to be dead." So I pulled for a third time and it finally went off.

STEPHANOPOLOS: That was the first time you ever used your gun, right?

WILSON: Yes, it was.

STEPHANOPOLOS: In all of your years as a police officer.
WILSON: Yes.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And then what happens?

WILSON: He gets even angrier. His aggression on his face, the intensity just increases. And he comes back in at me again. I wasn't looking at him, I was just like, rack it, expecting another hit, and I put my gun up and fired. Then I go to exit my car. And when I'm getting out, I use my walkie and I say, "Shots fired. Send more cars." And I start chasing after Michael Brown.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Why not stay in the car? He's running away.

WILSON: Because he's not-- my job isn't to just sit and wait. You know, I have to see where this guy goes.

STEPHANOPOLOS: So you felt it was your duty to give chase.

WILSON: Yes, it was. I mean, that's what we were trained to do.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And, he runs out of the car, gets about 30 to 40 feet. You can now get out of the car. You start to follow him, and then, he stops?

WILSON: He does stop.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Why?

WILSON: When he stopped, he turned, and faced me. And as he does that, his hand immediately goes into his waistband, and his left hand as a fist to his side. And he starts charging at me.

STEPHANOPOLOS: What did you think when you saw that?

WILSON: I didn't know. I mean, my initial thought was, "Is there a weapon in there?"
STEPHANOPOLOS: Even though he hadn't pulled something out earlier when he was confronting you?

WILSON: It was still just the unknown. And again, we were taught to-- "Let me see your hands."

STEPHANOPOLOS: As you know, some of the eye witnesses have said that, at that moment when he turned around, he turned around and put his hands up.

WILSON: That would be incorrect.

STEPHANOPOLOS: No way?

WILSON: No way.

STEPHANOPOLOS: So, you say he starts to run, [?] starts to come toward you...

WILSON: Mhmm.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And?

WILSON: At that time, I gave myself another mental check, "Can I shoot this guy?" You know, legally, can I? And the question I answered myself was, "I have to. If I don't, he will kill me if he gets to me."

STEPHANOPOLOS: Even if he's 35-40 feet away?

WILSON: Once he's coming in that direction, if he hasn't stopped yet, when's he going to stop? After he's coming at me and I decided to shoot, I fired a series of shots and paused.

STEPHANOPOLOS: What did you see?

WILSON: I noticed at least one of them hit him. I don't know where, but I saw his body kind of flinch a little. And after that, I paused and I began yelling, "Stop, get on the ground," giving him the opportunity to stop. And, he ignored all the commands and he just kept running. And so, after he kept running again, I shot another series of shots. And at least one of those hit him because I saw the flinch. Well, this time, he's about 15 feet away. So I started backpedaling, because he's just getting too close and he's still not stopping. He gets to about 8 to 10 feet, and as he does that, he starts to lean forward like he's going to tackle me. And I looked down at the barrel of my gun and I fired and what I saw was his head and that's where it went.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Right at the top of his head?

WILSON: Yes.

STEPHANOPOLOS: You'd never even shot your gun before, and now a man is dead.

WILSON: Mhmm. After the supervisor had got there, I gave him the brief rundown of what had happened.

STEPHANOPOLOS: What'd you tell him.

WILSON: I told him I had to shoot somebody. And he asked me why. And he said, "Well, he had grabbed my gun, and he had charged me, and he was going to kill me.

STEPHANOPOLOS: So you killed him first?

WILSON: Yes.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Is there anything you could have done differently that would have prevented that killing from taking place?

WILSON: No.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Nothing?

WILSON: No.

STEPHANOPOLOS: And you're absolutely convinced, when you look through your heart and your mind that, if Michael Brown were White, this would have gone down in exactly the same way.

WILSON: Yes.

STEPHANOPOLOS: No question?

WILSON: No question.

STEPHANOPOLOS: You and your wife-- I don't even know if this word is appropriate anymore-- what is your dream going forward?

WILSON: Like I said, we just want to live a normal life. That's it.

STEPHANOPOLOS: I guess it's hard to live a normal life after someone is lying dead.

WILSON: Mhmm.

STEPHANOPOLOS: Something you think that will always haunt you.

WILSON: I don't think it's a haunting. It's always going to be something that happened.

STEPHANOPOLOS: You are-- you have a very clean conscience?

WILSON: The reason why I have a clean conscience is because I know I did my job right.