Brown family attorney Anthony Gray speaks to the media during a press conference outside the St Louis County Court Building.

Reuters/Ferguson


The family of Michael Brown filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson yesterday, seeking unspecified damages and police reforms after the black teen’s killing by a white police officer prompted a national debate on law enforcement and race.
The civil lawsuit filed in St Louis County, Missouri, names the city of Ferguson, former police chief Thomas Jackson and former police officer Darren Wilson as defendants.
The lawsuit seeks $75,000 in compensation, as well as unspecified punitive damages, and calls for a court order prohibiting the use of police techniques “that demean, disregard, or under serve its African-American population”.
The shooting last August sparked protests and a national movement questioning police use of deadly force, especially against minorities in cities around the country.
The lawsuit alleges that Wilson destroyed evidence after he shot Brown on the street of the St Louis suburb last August, saying that he washed blood off his hands and cleared and bagged the gun used in the shooting.
“We expect to put on evidence that you never heard about before, that you have never seen,” Anthony Gray, one of the lawyers for Brown’s family, said at a news conference yesterday to discuss the lawsuit.
Gray said that evidence had not been presented properly in the previous investigations.
A grand jury in Missouri decided last year not to bring criminal charges against Wilson.
The US Department of Justice later cleared the police officer of any civil rights violations.
While Brown was unarmed, some witnesses said he had charged Wilson in the incident.
“We have not had a chance to read through (the lawsuit), but because it is pending litigation, the city won’t be able to make any comment,” Jeff Small, a spokesman for Ferguson, said in a telephone interview.
The city previously said it would establish a citizen review board, recruit diverse police officers and put into effect use of body and dashboard cameras by police officers and patrol cars.
Lawyers for Wilson were not immediately available to comment.
The lawsuit has been expected since last month, when the family expressed disappointment in the Justice Department investigation and said it would sue.
The department’s report did find racial bias and a pattern of illegal actions against African-Americans by the Ferguson Police Department.
Ferguson police chief Jackson resigned last month, within days of the report’s release.