ST. LOUIS (AP) – An attorney for the family of a black 18-year-old shot and killed last October by an off-duty, white St. Louis police officer said Tuesday he plans to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, after a prosecutor said the officer would not face criminal charges.
In a 51-page report released Monday, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said her office’s “independent and exhaustive investigation” concluded that a criminal violation could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in VonDerrit Myers Jr.’s death.
The report, which did not identify the officer because no charges were filed, said that “given all the available facts, witness statements, (and the) physical and forensic evidence,” the officer shot and killed Myers in self-defense after Myers first fired at him.
A statement by St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson identified the officer as Jason Flanery, a six-year veteran of the department. A message left Tuesday, with Flanery’s attorney, Brian Millikan, was not immediately returned.
Myers’s Oct. 8 death fanned racial unrest that had erupted two months earlier after the killing of black, unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in nearby Ferguson. Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, spawning a national “Black Lives Matter” movement seeking changes in how police deal with minorities.