Darren Wilson, the former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teen, will not face civil charges, according to one of two reports released by the Department of Justice Wednesday.
Although Wilson will not face federal civil charges, the Justice Department found “a pattern of unconstitutional policing.”
“As detailed in our report, this investigation found a community that was deeply polarized, and where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents,” said Attorney General Eric Holder, in a statement. “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them.
In investigating the shooting death of Brown, the DOJ report specifically pointed to “some prosecution witness accounts cannot be relied on because their accounts cannot be reconciled with the DNA bloodstain evidence and other credible witness accounts.”
“There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson’s stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety,” the report said.
The report found that witnesses who claimed that Mr. Brown was surrendering were not credible. “Some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witnesses’ own prior statements with no explanation,” it said.
“Although some witnesses state that Brown held his hands up at shoulder level with his palms facing outward for a brief moment, these same witnesses describe Brown then dropping his hands and ‘charging’ at Wilson,” it added.
Last November, a grand jury failed to indict Wilson in Brown’s death, sparking even more protest in Ferguson, a community whose residents have long complained of abuses of police power.
DOJ’s investigation of the Ferguson Police Department specifically found a pattern or practice of: conducting stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause, interfering with the right of free expression and using unreasonable force, among other violations.
The report also found a pattern of racial bias in both the Ferguson Police Department and municipal court, which is disproportionately borne by African Americans. The report on Ferguson’s police department says its practices “are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than on public safety needs.”
The Justice Department also states that as a city, Ferguson “has the capacity to reform its approach to law enforcement.”
See DOJ Report on the shooting death of Michael Brown HERE.
See the Report of the Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department HERE.
