Michael Brown’s Family to Continue Legal Fight

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Summary: Benjamin Crump, the attorney for the family of Michael Brown, has stated that the family will continue to pursue various legal options after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer that shot and killed Brown.

It was the grand jury decision heard round the world: last week, a grand jury decided that no criminal charges should be brought against Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer who in August shot Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black male, causing his death. Riots broke out as many protested the grand jury’s decision.

  

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Here is an article about the violence that broke out after the decision was announced.

According to CBS News, the family of Michael Brown, however, refuses to give up their fight. The grand jury’s failure to indict Officer Wilson will not slow the family down. Attorney Benjamin Crump, the attorney for the Brown family, stated, “The family greatly wanted to have the killer of their unarmed son held accountable. They really would look at every legal avenue.” The Brown family has several avenues to pursue, including a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Officer Wilson and fighting for a law that will require police officers to wear video body cameras.

Crump added that the grand jury proceedings were disturbing to the family, and that they were also bothered by Wilson’s contention that his conscience was clear after the incident and that, should the same situation arise again, he would do the same thing.

A state of emergency was declared as police officers prepared for the announcement.

Crump said, “They just feel that’s very cold. His mother and father don’t think Officer Wilson had any consideration for their child. And they wonder if he ever had a conscience. And so that’s troubling to them. And we want police officers that do have a conscience in our community, not police officers that are as cold as ice and see our children as demons and criminals.”

Last week, Officer Wilson resigned from the police department. Crump, along with millions of others, was not surprised by Wilson’s stepping down. “We always felt Officer Wilson would do what was in his best interest, both personally and professionally. And we think that he would not have been very effective for the Ferguson Police Department nor for the Ferguson community if he had continued to be a police officer in that community. And so we think that the community all expected this,” Crump explained.

There has been unrest in the Ferguson community for months.

Crump, along with Brown’s family, was frustrated with the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Wilson. Crump said that the grand jury process itself “needs to be indicted” and commented that the system is “broken.”

Crump complained, “Look at the way they questioned the people who came out and said that Michael Brown did nothing wrong and it was the police officer’s fault compared to the people who supported the police officer and especially the shooter, Darren Wilson. Look at how they let him testify for four hours and never cross-examined him. And this killer of an unarmed person has never been cross-examined. A first-year law student would have done a tougher cross-examination than this prosecutor’s office did to the killer of an unarmed kid in broad daylight.”

According to Crump, the documents released from the usually top-secret grand jury proceedings “shows you just how partial this prosecutor’s office was.” Crump argued that the decision facilitates a lack of trust between black communities and police officers. Crump noted that an acquittal after a trial would have been better-received by many: “But when you have this secret grand jury proceeding where there is only one lawyer in the room and that lawyer’s the local prosecutor who has a symbiotic relationship with the local police department and a local police officer and has no relationship or no regard for this young person of color…And then you see the results all the time coming out where they are exonerated. They are cleared. It’s swept under the rug. And we’re told to just go on and get over it. Well, we can’t continue just to go ahead and get over it. Because these are our children that are being killed.”

Photo credit: gopusa.com