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Ferguson Docs: How The Grand Jury Reached A Decision

After sitting through hours of testimony and reading through thousands of pages of documents, a grand jury decided that there was not enough probable cause to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old.

Their decision, like the shooting that led up to all this, sparked violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, overnight.

"The duty of the grand jury is to separate fact and fiction," the prosecuting attorney, Robert P. McCulloch, said in televised address. After weighing the evidence, nine of the 12 members of the grand jury decided that Wilson acted within the limits of the lethal-force law.

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In a rare move and in an attempt to allay concerns about bias, McCulloch made public the mountain of evidence that was presented to the grand jury. We're combing through the thousands of pages — including testimony from Wilson and many witnesses — and throughout the day, we'll update this post with the pieces that help explain how the those 12 people reached their decision.

Update at 6:49 p.m. ET. Wilson Testimony:

One of the big pieces of evidence in this case is the testimony of Darren Wilson.

Wilson testified that "he had considered using mace, his baton and his flashlight before drawing his gun and telling Brown, 'Get back or I'm going to shoot you.' Brown then grabbed his gun, Wilson said, twisted it and dug it down into the officer's hip."

Wilson said that he felt his life was in danger during the confrontation. One excerpt:

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Update at 6:41 a.m. ET. The Documents:

We've uploaded most of the documents we received from prosecutors. We invite you to look through them and tip us off to anything you find interesting in the comments.

Here are the documents:

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