USA-MISSOURI/SHOOTING-DECISION UPDATE Missouri police officer not charged in black teen's shooting

Record ID: 324582

  • Title: USA-MISSOURI/SHOOTING-DECISION UPDATE Missouri police officer not charged in black teen's shooting
  • Date: 25th November 2014
  • Summary: CLAYTON, MISSOURI (NOVEMBER 24, 2014) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROSECUTOR ROBERT MCCULLOCH, SAYING: "Eyewitness accounts must always be challenged and compared against the physical evidence. Many witnesses to the shooting of Michael Brown made statements inconsistent with other statements they made and also conflicting with the physical evidence.
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAANHRYAYLQMQMAUNS47PLE1HMR
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS PROFANITY IN SHOT #8
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: RESENDING WITH FULL SHOTLIST AND FULL SCRIPT
    A Missouri grand jury voted not to charge a white police officer for the fatal August shooting of an unarmed black teenager, an incident that set off weeks of sometimes violent protests around the St. Louis area, a county prosecutor said on Monday (November 24).
    The grand jury found there was no probable cause to charge Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson with any crime for the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an incident that highlighted longstanding racial tensions in the predominantly black city, which has a white-dominated power structure.
    "They determined that no probable cause exists to file any charge against officer Wilson," St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch told reporters in Clayton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis where the grand jury met.
    Brown's family said they were "profoundly disappointed" by the grand jury's finding.
    "While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change," the family said in a statement released by its attorneys.
    McCulloch said that some witness testimonies were inconsistent with the evidence.
    "Eyewitness accounts must always be challenged and compared against the physical evidence. Many witnesses to the shooting of Michael Brown made statements inconsistent with other statements they made and also conflicting with the physical evidence," he said.
    A crowd of several hundred people gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department ahead of the news, and many began to scream angrily as the news of the grand jury's decision was read.
    Authorities had stepped up security in and around Ferguson ahead of the decision, and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called up the National Guard to guard against the kind of rioting that flared in the weeks after the August 9 shooting.
    Some activists described the decision to pre-emptively activate the guard as unnecessarily heavy-handed, particularly following complaints that police inflamed crowds in August by responding in a heavily militarized posture, using tear gas and rubber bullets.
    The grand jury, with nine white and three black members, began meeting in late August and heard evidence that included witnesses called by the prosecution as well as a private pathologist hired by the Brown family to review the shooting. Nine jurors needed to agree to bring charges.
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