Charges will not be brought against Darren Wilson, the white former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. The decision comes nearly six years after a grand jury declined to prosecute Wilson.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said his office spent five months re-investigating the case at the request of Brown’s family. “Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law? After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did,” Bell told reporters Thursday. “I know this is not the result (the family was) looking for, and their pain will continue forever,” Bell said.
Brown was killed on August 9, 2014 after Wilson encountered him and a friend on Canfield Drive in Ferguson. The DOJ investigation cleared Wilson, but it issued a scathing indictment of the Ferguson Police Department as a whole, claiming officers routinely violated the rights of Black residents. Brown’s death set off unrest in the streets of Ferguson and, along with the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, sparked the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
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