FERGUSON, Mo. — Family and friends of Black 18-year-old Michael Brown said his death after being shot by a white police officer in Ferguson remains painful and frustrating six years after it occurred.
About 100 people gathered Sunday on the street where Brown was shot on Aug. 9, 2014, by officer Darren Wilson, which sparked months of protests and ignited the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Coming here every single year does not get easier,” said Cori Bush, an activist who rose to prominence during the Ferguson protests and upset longtime incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Tuesday’s Democratic Party primary, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
“This is the fate of so many across our country,” she said. “He didn’t have to die.”
Family and friends also expressed frustration with St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell's decision on July 30 not to charge Wilson. Bell had reopened the investigation but said there was not enough evidence to pursue murder or manslaughter charges against Wilson, who resigned in November 2014.
Ferguson Police Chief Jason Armstrong said the activism that followed Brown's death helped spark a wider national conversation about racial injustice that is occurring across the U.S. today.
