Michael Brown

Case background and investigation

On the morning of August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was Black, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, during a street encounter in the St. Louis suburb. According to official records, the confrontation began after Wilson, in his patrol vehicle, stopped Brown and a companion, Dorian Johnson, who were walking in the roadway. A struggle occurred at the vehicle, during which Wilson's firearm discharged. Brown then moved away from the vehicle, and Wilson pursued on foot before firing additional rounds that killed Brown. Investigators later determined that Brown was struck by multiple bullets, all entering the front of his body. Minutes earlier, Brown had been recorded on surveillance video taking merchandise from a nearby convenience store.

Accounts of the shooting's final moments diverged sharply and were never resolved in court. In his statements to investigators, Wilson said Brown had assaulted him at the vehicle, reached for his gun, and then, after fleeing, turned and moved toward him, leading Wilson to fire in what he described as self-defense. Some witnesses, including Johnson, initially described Brown as surrendering with his hands raised when he was shot, an account that gave rise to the protest slogan "Hands up, don't shoot." Other witnesses offered accounts more consistent with Wilson's version. Because no one was ever charged, no jury adjudicated which account was accurate; the descriptions here reflect the differing witness statements in the investigative record and are attributed accordingly, not asserted as fact.

On November 24, 2014, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch announced that a grand jury had declined to return an indictment against Wilson, finding insufficient probable cause to charge him under Missouri law. The decision, and the release of grand jury materials, prompted renewed protests. On March 4, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice issued two documents. In one, the department declined to bring federal civil rights charges against Wilson, concluding that the evidence did not establish that his use of deadly force was "objectively unreasonable" under the applicable federal standard and that prosecutors could not disprove his stated belief that he feared for his safety.

The department's second, separate report addressed the Ferguson Police Department as an institution. It concluded that the department and the city's municipal court engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violated the Constitution and federal law, finding that law-enforcement practices were shaped by a focus on generating revenue rather than public safety and that these practices both reflected and reinforced racial bias against Ferguson's Black residents. The findings led to a negotiated consent decree between the city and the federal government, approved by a court in 2016, requiring reforms to policing and the municipal court system.

Brown's death drew sustained national protests in Ferguson and elsewhere and became a catalyst for the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement and broader debate over policing and race in the United States. Brown's family pursued a civil wrongful-death lawsuit against the city, which was settled. In 2017, the family reached a settlement with Ferguson, the terms of which were kept confidential. In July 2020, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell announced that, after a months-long re-review by his office, he would not bring state charges against Wilson, saying the evidence could not prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt while adding that the finding did not exonerate Wilson. As of 2026, no one has been charged or convicted in connection with Brown's death, and the case remains closed at the state and federal levels.