In his first interview on ABC since the shooting that killed African American teenager Michael Brown, Officer Darren Wilson defended his behavior, saying he had a "clean conscience" regarding his actions and that he wouldn't do anything different in the same circumstances.

Wilson also said that, contrary to some witness accounts, there was "no way" Michael Brown had his hands up before he was shot.

During an exclusive interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Wilson said he saw Brown walking down the middle of the street, along the yellow line, when he asked him to move over. When he didn't, the officer said he pulled his car beside him. Describing an altercation that lasted 45 seconds, Wilson explained that he shot Brown six times.

There is a still a federal investigation underway into whether Wilson violated the teen's civil rights, and another investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, but that didn't stop the officer less than 24 hours after the jury failed to indict him from agreeing to break his silence, and give a national broadcast about his version of what happened that day.

The interview was an hour and half long and will air in parts. Excerpts show Wilson telling Stephanopoulos of how he went to open his car door and said to Brown, "Hey, come here for a minute."

According to Wilson, Brown said: "Hey, f**k you, and what you going to do about it?" before slamming the door shut. Wilson claims he then used the door to push back at Brown, who also pushed back, and the confrontation started. Wilson described how Brown hit him in the face, stating that punches then began to fly.

"He threw the first punch. It hit me on the left side of my face ... I don't know what, how many hit me after that, I just know there was a barrage of swinging and grabbing and pulling for about ten seconds," said Wilson.

Wilson said he tried to grab Brown's forearm so he could get out of the car, and realized the immense power the teenager had. "The way I've described it is like a five-year old holding on to Hulk Hogan. That's how big he was ... a very powerful man," said Wilson.

Wilson said Brown delivered another punch with his left fist to the officer's right cheek, and that at this point he thought, "How will I survive?"

Stephanopoulos asked for more explanation of what he meant by "survive," and Wilson clarified that he meant survive another hit to the face.

Wilson said he then grabbed his gun, pointed it at Brown and said: "Get back or I'll shoot you." "His response immediately was that he grabbed the top of my gun," Wilson said. "And when he grabbed the top of my gun, he said 'You're too much of a p**** to shoot me.' And while he's 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, that's when I pulled the trigger for the first time."

The trigger was pulled, but the gun didn't fire because Brown's hand was on top of the gun, Wilson explained, although it's not clear how this would prevent the weapon from discharging. He attempted to fire again with the same result, but after the third time, Wilson said, it went off.

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

Later in the interview, Stephanopoulos asked if there was anything Wilson could have done differently to prevent the killing from happen. Wilson answered, "No."

Stephanopoulos asked if it will be something that haunts him going forward. "I don't think it's haunting. It's always going to be something that happened," Wilson said. "The reason I have a clean conscience is because I know did my job right."

There have been close to 1,000 people killed by police since Jan. 1, 2014, and over 1,750 since May 2013, according to the website FiveThirtyEight.

Against those figures is data from the FBI Crime Reports -- based on police departments' own records -- which say that of the 533,895 police officers hired to protect and serve 247 million Americans, 27 officers died in 2013 in the line of duty. In 26 cases, those deaths were caused by males. Fifteen of the men were white, 11 were black, and all had criminal records.

Missing from official records, though, is how many police officers were indicted for excessive force. An independent study in 2010 by researcher David Packman showed 4,841 reports of police misconduct involving 6,613 police officers. Of those misconduct complaints, 3,238 resulted in charges being made, but only 33 percent were convicted and 12 percent incarcerated.