Witnesses to the deadly police shooting of a young black man who was holding an unloaded BB gun in an Ohio Walmart have contradicted officers’ claims about the specific command they gave him in the moments before opening fire.

The two police officers involved in the shooting also gave differing accounts of which of them gave orders to John Crawford III, who was speaking on his cell phone while standing in an aisle of the store in a suburb of Dayton last month, and of Crawford’s final movements.

The new findings were contained in hundreds of pages of an investigation file released to the Guardian by the Ohio attorney general’s office, following a grand jury’s decision last week not to indict the officer who shot Crawford, Sean Williams, on criminal charges. Jurors considered reports contained in the file, along with video surveillance footage and audio recordings.

The file gives the most detailed account so far of how Crawford, 22, came to be killed on the evening of 5 August based on the concerns of a couple, one of whom called 911 and claimed repeatedly that the 22-year-old was “pointing” the air rifle at shoppers. The caller later said that Crawford was “waving it around”.

Reports from interviews of Williams and the other officer who responded, sergeant David Darkow, said that they apparently did not identify themselves as police to Crawford as they turned the corner into the aisle where he was standing. They specified that they shouted at Crawford repeatedly “drop your weapon”, “drop your gun” or “drop the gun”.

Yet three witnesses separately said they heard one, less specific, command: “Put it down, put it down”. Crawford’s family have said surveillance footage suggests that while speaking on his phone, he may not have heard an order or realised that it was directed at him. One witness said she did hear police say “drop your weapon”; another said that he heard “get down”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photo released by the Ohio attorney general’s office shows the Walmart aisle where John Crawford III was killed. Photograph: Ohio bureau of criminal investigation

In a recording of the 911 call, a word that sounds like “down” is shouted as officers round a corner in the Walmart, about a second before two shots ring out. Darkow confirmed to investigators that the time between the “last command” being given and shots being fired was “fairly close”.

Vincent Popp, an attorney for Williams and Darkow, said: “I don’t see an issue with the choice of words. Mr Crawford was warned before shots were fired. People get details different. It doesn’t mean they’re lying; it means they remember it differently.”

Darkow also told his interviewers that before opening fire, he and Williams separately instructed Crawford to put down the gun. Yet Williams said that he did “not recall personally giving any commands”, and that only Darkow had done so.



Darkow further said that Crawford “made a movement that seemed to indicate an attempt to run or an attempt to take cover” just before the 22-year-old was shot. This description appears to be supported by the store surveillance footage, which was released last week.

Williams, however, apparently made no mention of this, telling the officials in his interview that he opened fire after Crawford made an “aggressive” move. He added in a written narrative that the 22-year-old had “turned towards us in an aggressive manner with the rifle in hand”.

By the time Darkow filed his own written narrative, 10 days after his interview, he described Crawford’s final action differently. Darkow said only that it was a “quick movement”, and did not repeat his earlier remarks that Crawford appeared to be trying to retreat. Darkow has always said that the shooting was justified.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tressa Sherrod speaks out against the officer that shot her son.

The inconsistencies emerged after Crawford’s mother told the Guardian the police were “trying to cover their butts” after discovering Crawford was holding a piece of store merchandise and speaking on his phone, rather than threatening shoppers. “But it’s not working, because we’ve seen the video, we’ve read the report – it doesn’t match,” said Tressa Sherrod.

The civil rights division of the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are reviewing the case for potential federal criminal charges. The Crawfords have not ruled out bringing a civil lawsuit against Williams if no prosecution emerges.

The investigation file offers the first indication of why Crawford was engrossed in his phone conversation. Tasha Thomas, the girlfriend in the store with him, said that Leecee Johnson, the mother of Crawford’s two young sons, had previously tried to call both of them several times, and was unhappy that Crawford was out with another woman.

It also casts new light on the changing story of Ronald Ritchie, the customer who called 911 to report Crawford was pointing his gun and posing a threat. Ritchie said he was prompted to act when Crawford passed them in the hardware section about 100 yards to the left of the corner where he stood until being shot.

Ritchie and his wife, April, claimed afterwards that Crawford was causing panic among fellow shoppers. Yet only one of seven other customers interviewed by Ohio’s bureau of criminal investigation recalled seeing Crawford. The customer, Billie Brewer, told investigators that he was not alarmed and presumed the 22-year-old was a Walmart employee taking a gun on sale at the store to a storeroom. The “open carry” of firearms is legal in Ohio.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photo released by the Ohio attorney general’s office shows the opened box of the BB rifle that John Crawford III picked up. Photograph: Ohio bureau of criminal investigation

Ritchie stated repeatedly on his 911 call that Crawford was pointing the gun at people, including two children in particular. This was relayed to the officers on the ground, and before shooting Crawford, Williams called back to the 911 dispatcher to confirm the gun was being pointed at people. In a written statement to Beavercreek police the following day, Ritchie repeated again that Crawford was “pointing the gun at people as they walked by”.

Yet Ritchie “later explained that the man with the gun wasn’t actually pointing the gun at the family”, according to a report of his interview with state investigators, but “swinging the gun around and flashing the muzzle at children”. Ritchie later made similar remarks to the Guardian in an interview. Later still, the surveillance footage showed Crawford occasionally swinging the gun at his side and pointing it at a shelf, but not in the direction of anyone.

April Ritchie gave a similar account to investigators, adding that Crawford was acting “very shady”. She said the couple trailed Crawford, adding that “her husband was a former marine and knew how to maintain a safe distance”.

According to his official service record, Ritchie was a marine for seven weeks in 2008. He told the Guardian he was discharged after chiefs declared him a “fraudulent enlistment” for not disclosing a medical condition. He maintains that he did disclose it but paperwork was not submitted. He claimed to investigators that he actually served for a longer period but his record was shortened retrospectively.

April Ritchie, who used a Walmart scooter due to a leg injury, said she travelled around warning shoppers about Crawford. None interviewed by investigators recounted this. Surveillance footage showed Crawford continued to look straight ahead. Yet April Ritchie, who had been standing to his left, “said that despite what the video camera was showing, they maintained eye contact with Crawford”. After police told customers to evacuate, “she left the scooter and ran”. She later stopped cooperating with the investigators.

The documents disclosed how Walmart staff might have made contact with Crawford before the 911 call was made, in order to advise him about potential misunderstandings. Only one of 27 employees working at the time told interviewers that he noticed Crawford and the air rifle.

The employee, Corey Brooks, said he saw Crawford “swaying” “what looks like” a full-powered weapon. While he “considered it may not be real”, he believed that it “could cause potential panic”, according to his interview report. Brooks radioed a colleague and asked her to tell an assistant manager, Jessica Thomas, to have Crawford leave the store.

Thomas told investigators that she looked for Crawford but could not find him, and then heard gunshots. Brooks estimated that the shots were fired about 10 minutes after his radioed message. This would mean that he made his request for managers to talk to Crawford about five minutes before Ritchie called 911.

The documents also disclosed that one of the first police officers to arrive at the Walmart following the shooting was Williams’s father, Chris, who serves alongside his son in the Beavercreek force. Chris Williams said in his interview that he believed his son’s actions had been in line with the department’s policies and procedures.