U.S. clears officer in Ferguson shooting
‘Must do better,’ to address racism, says mayor following report release
The Justice Department cleared a white former Ferguson, Mo., police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old on Wednesday, but also issued a scathing report calling for sweeping changes in city law enforcement practices it called discriminatory and unconstitutional.
At a news conference following the release of the report, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said his city “must do better” to address racism.
“We must do better not only as a city but as a state and a country. We must all work to address issues of racial disparity in all aspects of our society,” he said.
Knowles said one police department employee was fired and two others are on administrative leave over racist emails uncovered in the probe into the city’s law enforcement practices.
The dual reports marked the culmination of months-long federal investigations into a shooting that sparked protests and a national dialogue on race and law enforcement as the tenure of Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black person to hold that office, draws to a close.
In pairing the announcements, the Obama administration sought to offset community disappointment over the conclusion that the shooting of Michael Brown was legally justified with a message of hope for Ferguson’s majority-black citizenry. Officials announced 26 recommendations, including training officers in how to de-escalate confrontations and banning the use of ticketing and arrest quotas.
“It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action,” Holder said.
The decision not to prosecute Darren Wilson, the officer who was cleared in November by a state grand jury and has since resigned, had been expected. To win a federal civil rights case, officials would have needed to prove that Wilson wilfully deprived Brown of his rights by using unreasonable force.
The report found no evidence to disprove Wilson’s testimony that he feared for his safety during the Aug. 9 confrontation. Nor were there reliable witness accounts to establish that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot, it said.
One of Wilson’s attorneys, Neil Bruntrager, said his client was satisfied with the outcome. Brown family lawyer Benjamin Crump said the family was not surprised but very disappointed, and one of Brown’s uncles, Charles Ewing, said he believed Wilson was “getting away with it.”