Frustrated in Ferugson
Prosecutor in Brown case: Fix laws that shield police
CLAYTON, Mo. — After a third review failed to uncover enough evidence to charge the officer who fatally shot Black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., some prosecutors and civil rights leaders agree it's time to focus on changing the laws that shield police.
In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said legislators need to take a hard look at laws that offer protection against prosecution for police officers that regular citizens aren't afforded, pushing a message that has gained strong momentum in the two months since George Floyd's death by Minneapolis police launched a national reckoning over racial injustice and police brutality.
“We see those types of laws throughout the country, and it is something that handcuffs prosecutors in numerous ways when you are going about prosecuting officers who have committed unlawful use of force or police shootings,” Bell said.
Bell, St. Louis County's first Black prosecuting attorney, was elected in 2018 as a reformer, and he has implemented sweeping changes that have reduced the jail population, ended prosecution of low-level marijuana crimes and sought to help offenders rehabilitate themselves.
He also established an independent unit to investigate officer-involved shootings, a division that spent five months looking at the 2014 death of Brown, who was shot by white Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson.
The shooting spurred months of unrest and helped solidify the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement.
In the end, the progressive prosecutor came to the same result as his old-school, toughon-crime predecessor, Bob McCulloch, as well as the U.S. Justice Department: Wilson didn't commit murder or manslaughter “beyond a reasonable doubt” under Missouri law.
Bell stressed that the investigation didn't exonerate Wilson, who who resigned in November 2014. Wilson and Brown became involved in a heated confrontation on Aug. 9, 2014. Wilson said that Brown came at him menacingly and that he killed him in self-defense.
“The question of whether we can prove a case at trial is different than clearing him of any and all wrongdoing,” Bell said. “There are so many points at which Darren Wilson could have handled the situation differently, and if he had, Michael Brown might still be alive.”
Civil rights leaders said the case shows that state laws need to be changed.
“I can't be disappointed any longer in a system that has always performed with callousness against Black people and Black bodies, no matter who's in charge,” said Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a Ferguson protester and educator who is now a national voice in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Scott Roberts, senior director of Criminal Justice Campaigns at Color of Change, said Bell's decision not to charge Wilson “reinforces the importance of making the systemic changes necessary to end overpolicing and the structural racism built to protect police officers from accountability.”
Brown was among several young Black men whose deaths at the hands of police in 2014 spurred 24 states to pass law enforcement reform. An Associated Press analysis in June found that only about one-third of those states addressed use of force.
But many states and dozens of cities and counties are taking a closer look at use-offorce laws since Floyd, a Black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes as he pleaded for air.
In Missouri, no new laws are on the horizon. Republican Gov. Mike Parson convened a special session this week to address violent crime — both St. Louis and Kansas City are seeing surges in killings and gun violence — but he rejected calls to include police reform measures.
Bell knows that many people were disappointed that he didn't bring charges in Brown's death but says prosecuting police shouldn't be the “litmus test” for progress.