Prosecutor declines to charge ex-officer
CLAYTON, Mo. — St. Louis County’s top prosecutor announced Thursday that he will not charge the former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a dramatic decision during a renewed national conversation about racial injustice and the police treatment of minority groups.
Nearly six years ago, a grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot Brown, a Black 18-year-old. Civil-rights leaders and Brown’s mother had hoped that Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, the county’s first Black prosecutor, would reopen the case after he took office in January 2019.
Bell announced his decision after quietly reinvestigating the case.
Describing the announcement as “one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do,” Bell said that after a fivemonth review of witness statements, forensic reports and other evidence to determine if his office could prove that Wilson committed murder or manslaughter “we cannot prove that he did,” Bell said.
Wilson, who said he scuffled with Brown over his service weapon, said Brown came at him menacingly, forcing him to fire his gun in self-defense.
The August 2014 shooting touched off months of unrest. The Ferguson protests helped solidify the national Black Lives Matter movement that began after Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old, was shot to death by George Zimmerman, a community watch member, in Florida in 2012.
The issue has taken on new life since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.