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Ferguson Decision Thrusts St. Louis Prosecutor Into National Spotlight

4 minute read

On Tuesday, attorneys for the family of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, took out their frustration over the lack of an indictment in the fatal incident on one man: Bob McCulloch.

“We objected back in August to this prosecutor,” said attorney Benjamin Crump. “The process should be indicted.”

McCulloch moved to the center of the nation’s attention with his remarks Tuesday night, broadcast through cable television and streamed online, ahead of the announcement that the grand jury would not indict Wilson. He criticized the media’s coverage of the investigation and targeted users of social media for spreading falsehoods.

“The most significant challenge encountered in this investigation,” McCulloch said, “has been the 24-hour news cycle and its insatiable appetite for something, for anything, to talk about, following closely behind with the nonstop rumors on social media.”

(MORE: Don’t blame social media for Ferguson.)

St. Louis County’s long-time prosecutor, McCulloch was first elected in 1991. He quickly made a name for himself when he charged Axl Rose, the lead singer for the rock band Guns N’ Roses, with a misdemeanor assault and property damage following a concert where, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 40 concertgoers and 25 police officers were injured.

McCulloch soon gained a reputation not for pursuing rock stars but as a prosecutor who protected police officers, often angering minority communities around St. Louis in the process.

In 2001, McCulloch declined to prosecute two undercover officers who killed two unarmed black drug dealers. The officers said the two men tried to escape and drove their car toward them, but a federal investigation found that they had not moved their car forward. The investigation still concluded, however, that the officers fired in self-defense, and McCulloch called the two suspects “bums.”

See 23 Key Moments From Ferguson

Police Shooting Missouri
On Aug. 9, 2014, unarmed teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. This image provided by KMOV-TV shows investigators inspecting Brown's body.Tiffany Mitchell—AP
APTOPIX Police Shooting Missouri
Lesley McSpadden, Brown's mother, is comforted by her husband, Louis Head, on Aug. 9, 2014, after her son's deathHuy Mach—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Police Shooting Missouri
A fire burns at a QuikTrip store in Ferguson on Aug. 10, 2014, as protests turned violent one day after Brown's death. The night marked the first violent turn for the protests.David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Police move in to detain a protester in Ferguson, Mo.
Heavily-armed police advance on a protester on Aug. 11, 2014. Law enforcement's tactical response, which included military-grade weapons, tanks and SWAT teams, touched off a debate over the militarization of local police forces.Whitney Curtis—The New York Times/Redux
Missouri Police Shooting
A protester takes shelter from billowing smoke during demonstrations in Ferguson on Aug. 13, 2014. Such scenes were relatively common during the first week of protests.David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
TEAR GAS SHOT AT PROTESTORS
A demonstrator throws back a tear gas container after tactical officers worked to break up a group of bystanders on Chambers Road near West Florissant in Ferguson on Aug. 13, 2014. Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT/Zuma Press
Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol addresses the media in Ferguson, Missouri
Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol addresses the media in Ferguson on Aug. 15, 2014. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon appointed NIxon to coordinate law enforcement's response after local departments were criticized for fanning the flames.Lucas Jackson—Reuters
Darren Wilson
Darren Wilson at a Ferguson city council meeting on Feb. 11, 2014. The image was the first widely-circulated photo of Wilson after the shooting.City of Ferguson/AP
Outrage In Missouri Town After Police Shooting Of 18-Yr-Old Man
Tear gas rains down on a woman kneeling in the street with her hands in the air during a demonstration in Ferguson on Aug. 17, 2014. The "hands up, don't shoot" pose became the defining gesture of the protests.Scott Olson—Getty Images
Missouri race riot
Police in Ferguson fire tear gas in the direction of bottle-throwing crowds on Aug. 18, 2014.David Carson—St Louis Post-Dispatch / Polaris
US-CRIME-RACE-POLICE-SHOOTING
Law enforcement officers look on during a protest on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Aug. 18, 2014.Michael B. Thomas—AFP/Getty Images
National Guard Called In As Unrest Continues In Ferguson
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared with Capt. Ron Johnson at Drake's Place Restaurant in Ferguson on Aug. 20, 2014. Holder's visit was meant to calm tensions after almost 10 days of protests.Pablo Martinez Monsivais—Pool/Getty Images
Michael Brown Sr, yells out as his son's  casket is lowered into the ground at St. Peter's Cemetery in St. Louis
An anguished Michael Brown, Sr. yells as his son's casket is lowered into the ground at St. Peter's Cemetery in St. Louis, Mo., on Aug. 25, 2014. Richard Perry—Reuters
Rally Held in Ferguson Over Police Killing Of Michael Brown
Members of the Ferguson Police Department wear body cameras during a rally on Aug. 30, 2014, in Ferguson. Like a number of departments around the U.S., Ferguson police began using the wearable cameras after Michael Brown was killed. There are no video recordings of the incident involving Brown and officer Darren Wilson.Aaron P. Bernstein—Getty Images
Police Shooting Missouri Memorial
A fire on Sept. 23, 2014 burned a memorial for Michael Brown on the site where he was killed. The memorial was later rebuilt.Jacob Crawford—AP
Protesters call for resignation of Ferguson police chief
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, left, addresses protesters in front of the Ferguson Police Department, on Sept. 25, 2014. Protesters have called for Jackson to resign.Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Ferguson St. Louis Protests
Demonstrators participate at a rally on the campus of St. Louis University on Oct. 13, 2014. Citizens around St. Louis continued to demonstrate throughout October, including during a performance by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game.Scott Olson—Getty Images
Cornel West
Academic Cornel West is taken into custody after performing an act of civil disobedience at the Ferguson, Mo., police station on Oct. 13, 2014.Charles Rex Arbogast—AP
UN Committee Against Torture
Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother, attends a press conference addressing the U.N. Committee Against Torture, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 12, 2014. Brown's parents testified in front of the committee about their son's death.Martial Trezzini—EPA
A police car burns on the street after a grand jury returned no indictment in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri
After the announcement that the grand jury brought no charges against Darren Wilson, police officers and protesters faced off on a tense night in which cars and buildings were burned by protesters and tear gas thrown by police, in Ferguson, Mo. on Nov. 24, 2014.Jim Young—Reuters
Eric Holder
On March 4, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice released two reports clearing Officer Wilson of any civil rights violations when he shot and killed Brown but found a pattern of explicit racism and unfair treatment of minorities by Ferguson police officers and local officials.Carolyn Kaster—AP
Outrage In Missouri Town After Police Shooting Of 18-Yr-Old Man
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson stepped down March 11, 2015, after a federal report harshly criticized the police department, becoming the sixth Ferguson official to resign since the investigation. Scott Olson—Getty Images
Police officers respond to a fellow officer hit by gunfire outside the Ferguson Police Headquarters in Ferguson
Two police officers were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department March 12, 2015, during a demonstration that followed the resignation of the agency’s embattled police chief. The two officers—one from Webster Groves, Mo., the other from St. Louis County—were seriously injured.Lawrence Bryant—St. Louis American/Reuters

Activists have also raised questions over his family’s long-standing connection to law enforcement. McCulloch’s uncle, brother and cousin were all police officers. His mother worked in the St. Louis Police’s homicide bureau. McCulloch’s father, also a St. Louis police officer, was killed in 1964 by a kidnapper, who was black. Like his father, McCulloch initially wanted to become a police officer but was unable to after losing his right leg to cancer.

“I couldn’t become a policeman, so being county prosecutor is the next best thing,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Since August, black communities around St. Louis have scrutinized the grand jury investigation into Brown’s death, specifically McCulloch’s decision not to recommend a specific charge for Wilson and instead allowing the grand jury to decide. As TIME’s Alex Altman wrote in September, that non-decision decision was viewed by activists as a way for McCulloch to avoid indictment.

“To present a case to a grand jury, without any direction or instructions with regard to what you want them to achieve gives the best odds that an indictment will not occur,” Adolphus Pruitt of the St. Louis NAACP told TIME then.

(MORE: Inside Darren Wilson’s Testimony)

On Monday, McCulloch defended the grand jury process and its outcome, saying that eyewitness accounts regarding the incident were often unreliable and that the physical evidence showed that Wilson was justified in shooting Brown.

“Our only goal was that our investigation would be thorough and complete,” McCulloch said. “The grand jury worked tirelessly to examine and reexamine all of the testimony of the witness and all of the physical evidence.”

“As tragic as this is,” McCulloch added, “it was not a crime.”

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