Michael Brown’s family will sue city of Ferguson, officer: Lawyers

The family of a black American teenager killed by a white police officer plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer and the city of Ferguson, Mo., lawyers said on Thursday.

The family’s legal team, Anthony Gray and Daryl Parks, said “the City of Ferguson and former Officer Darren Wilson will be named in the suit”.

“We feel Officer Darren Wilson did not need to shoot and kill Michael Brown Jr. in broad daylight in the manner that he did,” Gray said.

According to Parks, Brown’s family does “not accept” that Wilson fatally killed their son in self-defense.

Both lawyers said the suit will be lodged “soon,” but did not provide further details on the lawsuit.

The move came after the Department of Justice failed to bring civil rights charges against officer Wilson on Wednesday clearing him of federal charges in the fatal shooting of Brown on August 9, 2014.

After the ruling was issued, US Attorney General Eric Holder said a lengthy investigation into the shooting of the unarmed teenager has found systemic racial bias against African Americans in Ferguson.

Holder accused the Ferguson Police Department of creating “a highly toxic environment” in the Missouri town.

The Justice Department also released a report that detailed the ways in which the Ferguson police created fear and resentment among African American residents in the Missouri town by disproportionately targeting them with fines, tickets and excessive force.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Wednesday “We must all work to address issues of racial disparity in all aspects of society.”

The report shows that there are problems “not only in our police department, but in the entire St. Louis region,” Knowles stated.

The report is the result of a month-long probe triggered by the shooting death of Brown, which led to massive Black Lives Matter protests across the country.