Justice Department won’t prosecute police officer in Ferguson case
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday that no federal civil rights charges will be brought against the former Ferguson, Mo., police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown last August.
While a separate Justice Department probe found systemic bias in the Ferguson Police Department overall, Holder said prosecutors couldn’t clear the high hurdle needed to file charges against former Officer Darren Wilson.
“The facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case,” Holder said at a news conference. “Michael Brown’s death, while a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on behalf of Officer Wilson.”
Federal charges would have required prosecutors to prove that Wilson knowingly and deliberately violated Brown’s constitutionally protected civil rights during their ill-fated Aug. 9 encounter. This would mean, for instance, that Wilson used unreasonable force and targeted the 18-year-old Brown because of race.
Wilson is white. Brown was African-American. After the shooting and the demonstrations that ensued, Holder himself visited Ferguson and directed his department to find out what had happened and why.
“The promise that I made when I went to Ferguson, and at the time we launched our investigation, was not that we would arrive at a particular outcome, but rather that we would pursue the facts, wherever they lay,” Holder said.
Justice Department investigators said their review, spelled out in an 86-page report released Wednesday, included dozens of interviews, the canvassing of more than 300 Ferguson households and the use of “physical, ballistic, forensic and crime scene evidence; medical reports and autopsy reports.”
Brown’s parents said in a statement that they were disappointed in the decision not to prosecute Wilson.
“While we are saddened by this decision, we are encouraged that the DOJ will hold the Ferguson Police Department accountable for the pattern of racial bias and profiling they found in their handling of interactions with people of color,” said Lesley McSpadden, Brown’s mother, and his father, Michael Brown Sr. “It is our hope that through this action, true change will come not only in Ferguson, but around the country.”
The 102-page report, also formally made public Wednesday, Justice Department investigators spelled out 26 recommendations to address what they called a pattern or practice of discriminatory behavior by local court and law enforcement officials. Holder termed the report “searing.”
Investigators found, for instance, that:
▪ From 2012 to 2014, 93 percent of the people arrested in Ferguson were African-American, though African-Americans accounted for only 67 percent of the city’s population.
▪ In 88 percent of the cases in which Ferguson police documented a use of force, it was deployed against African-Americans. African-Americans were the targets in all 14 reported instances of a Ferguson police dog biting an individual.
▪ Ferguson police overwhelmingly charged African-Americans with petty offenses, for which fines and court appearances can impose a substantial burden. From 2011 to 2013, for instance, African-Americans accounted for 95 percent of individuals charged with a “manner of walking in roadway” offense.
The federal investigators also uncovered email trails that documented racial bias.
This story was originally published March 4, 2015 at 7:55 PM with the headline "Justice Department won’t prosecute police officer in Ferguson case."