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Five years after an 18-year-old teen named Michael Brown was gunned down in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri by officer, Brown’s family will live with the weight of their profound loss into eternity.
And while Brown’s death sparked a far-reaching Black Lives Matter movement which seeks to liberate Black people from the systemic adversities of white supremacy, across the globe the Brown family has yet to see justice for the loss of their son.
On Friday Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., held a press conference asking Wesley Bell, St. Louis County’s newly elected prosecutor, to reopen his son’s case. Bell stood tall as a local Ferguson activist and as part of the Black Lives Matter movement who pushed for Ferguson’s political reform.
“Five years today I lost my first-born, my only son. It was a day I thought I would never see, a day that has changed my life forever,” he began.
“My son deserved to live a full life but a coward with a badge chose not to value his life. My son was murdered in cold blood with no remorse and no medical treatment. ‘Mike Mike’ laid in the street for four and a half hours, as he laid there, he was dehumanized and disrespected,” he said.
“I am demanding evidence to be re-analyzed and accountability to follow. As a father I vowed to protect my children, but on August 9, 2014 that was not the case. I could not protect him that day and that breaks my heart,” Brown said as he held back tears.
Months after Officer Darren Wilson fired the fatal shots that struck Brown’s body a grand jury failed to indict Officer Wilson. In March 2015, the Justice Department declined to pursue federal civil rights charges against Wilson.
But the Justice Department’s investigation uncovered a myriad of offenses which included top to bottom corruption from the city’s political regime. And of course, Black residents suffered at disproportionate levels due to the misuse of power.
However a slew of recent elections have seen progressive candidates unseat those who held up the old regime, including an unsuccessful attempt by Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden who is still fighting the good fight. But, Ferguson still has so long to go to relieve itself of the corruption founded over decades.
