[17] Michael Orlandus Darrion Brown[18] (May 20, 1996[19] – August 9, 2014) graduated from Normandy High School in St. Louis County eight days before his death, completing an alternative education program.

[28] In February 2013, Wilson won a commendation from the Ferguson Police Department after he apprehended a suspect who was later charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and resisting arrest.

[28] Surveillance video which was publicly released in the 2017 documentary film Stranger Fruit shows Michael Brown walking into Ferguson Market and Liquor at 1:13 a.m., ten-and-a-half hours before he entered the store for the final time.

[32] Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, left the market at about 11:54 a.m.[33] At 11:57, the dispatch described the suspect as wearing a red St. Louis Cardinals hat, a white T-shirt, yellow socks, and khaki shorts, and that he was accompanied by another male.

[89] Documents released after the grand jury proceedings show Wilson washed blood from his hands and checked his own gun into an evidence bag, both actions described by media outlets as unorthodox procedures for such a case.

When Mary Case, the St. Louis County medical examiner, was asked to provide details, she declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation into Brown's death.

[94][111] The federal autopsy report was among a group of documents released by the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office on December 8, two weeks after the grand jury chose not to indict Wilson.

"[114] CNN's law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes noted most accounts of the shooting say there was a single shot earlier in the incident near the vehicle that is not audible in the recording.

[127] An Associated Press review of the grand jury found numerous problems in the witness testimony, including statements that were "inconsistent, fabricated, or provably wrong".

[13]: pp.27–28 After the shooting, Witness 102 remained in the neighborhood for a short period of time, and corrected a couple of people who claimed Wilson "stood over [Brown] and shot while [he was] on the ground".

[13]: p.30 Witness 108, a 74-year-old black male, told detectives the police officer was "in the right" and "did what he had to do", and that statements made by people in the apartment complex about Brown surrendering were inaccurate.

She said she was afraid of the "neighborhood backlash" that might come from her testimony, and feared offering an account contrary to the narrative reported by the media that Brown held his hands up in surrender.

[161][162] The statutory deadline in the Sunshine Law, Missouri's equivalent of the federal Freedom of Information Act, was the cited reason for the release following requests by St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Judicial Watch and others.

[167][168] Brown's family released a statement in which they condemn the way the police chief chose to disseminate information, calling it character assassination following the "execution-style murder" of their son.

[190][191] A December 2014 opinion poll by Washington Post-ABC News showed a majority of blacks do not believe that they receive treatment equal to whites by the police or the criminal justice system.

[193] President Obama reacted to the announcement, stating, "The finding that was made [by the Department of Justice] was that it was not unreasonable to determine that there was not sufficient evidence to charge Officer Wilson.

[65] Earlier in the hearing, the prosecution presented a 1979 Missouri statute allowing officers to use deadly force "to effect the arrest or prevent the escape from custody [of a person]".

Before the grand jury deliberated, jurors were told to disregard the previous instructions and use case law from the Tennessee v Garner ruling, which said it was unconstitutional for police officers to use deadly force to apprehend non-dangerous fleeing suspects.

[211] Jay Sterling Silver said the grand jury case indicated a conflict of interest between local prosecutors and police, as the former needs to maintain a good relationship with law enforcement.

Paul Callan, former deputy chief of homicide in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, gave a layered response which asserted the choice to present all the evidence was unusual, but not unprecedented in controversial cases.

[213] After the grand jury's decision was announced, Brown's stepfather, Louis Head, turned to a crowd of demonstrators who had gathered, and yelled "Burn this bitch down", according to a New York Times video.

[221] The National Bar Association, an organization of African American lawyers and judges, made a complaint to the Missouri Department of Public Safety demanding Wilson's police officer license be revoked.

[223] President Barack Obama announced the federal government would spend $75 million on body cameras for law enforcement officers, as one of the measures taken in response to the shooting.

The term was coined by Doyle Sam Dotson III, the chief of the St. Louis police, to account for an increased murder rate in some U.S. cities following the Ferguson unrest.

[258] On April 23, 2015, the Brown family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state court against Wilson, Jackson, and the City of Ferguson, asking for damages in excess of $75,000 as well as attorney's fees.

The lawsuit claimed that, according to the findings of the § DOJ investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, law enforcement efforts focused on generating revenue rather than protecting the town's citizens.

He says while he was stopped in a parking lot, a police officer pulled up and demanded identification for no apparent reason, noticed the radar detector, and took it without compensation after falsely stating it had shown up as stolen.

Rossi wrote and recorded a protest song expressing his feelings about a grand jury's decision not to charge a white police officer in the death of the unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri.

Here is a sample from the song's beginning, printed in the Los Angeles Daily News: "Down at the courthouse on a Monday afternoon/Justice was thrown right out the window when a young white cop entered the room.

[287][288] Seattle based rapper Macklemore mentions Wilson in the song "White Privilege II" from his second collaborative effort with producer Ryan Lewis, 2016's This Unruly Mess I've Made: "My success is the product of the same system that let off Darren Wilson – guilty"[289] In 2016, a chapter about Black Lives Matter memorials to Brown and others was included in the book, "The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements," by preservationist Catherine Fleming Bruce.