CLAYTON, Mo. _ St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell said Thursday that he will not charge the former Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014.
Bell said that the significance of the case and requests from Brown's family prompted his office to quietly reopen an investigation about five months ago, but the office did not have enough evidence to disprove a self-defense claim in trial.
"This is one of the most difficult things I've had to do as an elected official," Bell said beginning a news conference Thursday.
"Although this case represents one of the most significant moments in St. Louis's history, the question to this office is a simple one: Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law?" Bell said. "After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did."
Bell's comments first appeared in an exclusive interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch metro columnist Tony Messenger.
"In the end, we cannot ethically bring this case to trial," Bell told Messenger in an interview before he announced the results of the investigation at the news conference.
Bell added that his decision does not clear Wilson of wrongdoing.
"There is so many points in which Darren Wilson could have handled the situation differently and if he had Michael Brown might still be alive," he said Thursday. "But that is not the question before us."
A lawyer for Wilson did not return messages seeking comment on the decision.
Bell's 2018 win in the Democratic primary for St. Louis County prosecutor renewed calls to reopen the investigation into Brown's death. Last year, on the five-year anniversary of Brown's Aug. 9 death, his family demanded Bell's office reinvestigate the killing that rocked St. Louis and launched national conversations about race and policing.
Bell had been reluctant to publicly say if his office would reopen the case.
When the office did start the review early this year, Bell said only a few people within his office knew of the investigation.
"We didn't want to create a circus if we announced that we were looking at it," he said. "We didn't want any undue or outside pressure to try to push us to one side or another."
Wilson, a white officer, shot and killed Brown on Aug. 9, 2014, in the middle of a street inside the busy Canfield Green apartment complex. Police left the Black teenager's body in the street for more than four hours, igniting outrage across the country and day after day of angry, sometimes violent protests in Ferguson.
The 2014 shooting motivated months of protests here and elsewhere.
Bell's predecessor, Robert McCulloch, reviewed evidence in the shooting and convened a grand jury. The jury ultimately declined to indict Wilson, reigniting widespread protests.
Wilson resigned from the Police Department in November 2014.
The next year, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded Wilson was justifiably afraid of Brown and could not be prosecuted federally. The Justice Department also said in one of two lengthy reports that Ferguson unfairly targeted and bolstered its budget on the backs of impoverished minorities.
Bell shared a list Thursday of changes his office made since he took office in January 2019 in response to issues raised in the Ferguson movement.
He pointed to a new independent unit tasked with investigating police use of force and exonerations, new victim support practices and diversion programs for low-level crimes. Bell also announced Thursday that all homicide grand jury proceedings will be recorded once they resume after current pandemic delays.
"I don't know how this region is ever going to heal fully from the significance of this case," Bell said. "But I believe it is time to try to move on."
