JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Not much is normal about the Missouri grand jury responsible for deciding whether to charge a suburban St. Louis police officer for fatally shooting Michael Brown.
Not the length of deliberations, not the manner in which it has heard evidence, not the way in which its work could be made public. Then again, the case itself is unusual.
Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, shot the black unarmed 18-year-old shortly after noon on Aug. 9 in the center of a street, after some sort of scuffle occurred between them. As Brown’s body lay there for hours, an angry crowd gathered. Riots and looting occurred the next night. In the following days, police responded with tear gas and smoke canisters as some protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails.
The Associated Press spoke with a veteran prosecutor and criminal defense attorney in Missouri about the typical grand jury process – and the ways the Brown case is far from the norm.
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