The death of Michael Brown has resurrected recollection of other cases in which a fatal police shooting sparked federal investigations, generated protests or raised questions about whether an officer was in imminent danger.
TRAFFIC STOP
One similar case involved the shooting of a different Michael Brown, 23, of Troy, Mo., who was shot and killed along with a friend in October 2005.
Authorities said that Lincoln County sheriff’s Deputy Nic Forler fired through the back window of a pickup, killing Brown and the driver, Tyler Teasley, 22. No one in the truck was armed.
Police said Forler tried to stop Teasley’s truck for speeding but was led on a short chase. When the truck finally stopped, Forler pulled behind it, got out of his patrol car and stood between the vehicles.
Witnesses said Teasley was “freaking out” because he had been drinking, there was alcohol in the car and several passengers were under 21. In his panic, they said, Teasley left the truck in neutral. As the truck rolled backward, Forler fired the fatal shots that struck both victims in the head.
Family and friends demonstrated regularly outside the sheriff’s office. Forler was dismissed from the force and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
In a trial in 2007, moved to Boone County because of the controversy caused in Lincoln County, Forler testified that he believed Teasley was trying to run him over, and he feared for his life. The jury took only three hours to find Forler not guilty.
After the verdict in 2007, Teasley’s mother, Mary, wept as she spoke to reporters outside the courthouse. “How can I tell my family that the law is for everyone when I can go to the police academy for six months and go out and murder someone?”
DRUG BUST
Similar in public exposure was a 2000 incident in which undercover officers killed two men on the parking lot of a Jack in the Box on North Hanley Road in Berkeley. A threatened highway blockade and other civil disobedience by protesters garnered extensive media coverage.
On June 12, 2000, Dellwood officers Robert Piekutowski and Keith Kierzkowski said they feared being run over by a car containing Earl Murray of Kinloch and Ronald Beasley of St. Louis. The officers were assigned to a federal task force making its third drug buy from Murray.
When they approached Murray’s car, the officers said, he put it into reverse and backed into a Ford Explorer driven by a Drug Enforcement Agency agent. As the car turned toward the officers, they opened fire. The officers said the suspects did not fire any shots and had no weapons in their hands.
Friends and family described the men, who both had felony convictions, as small-time drug dealers, hustling crack cocaine and marijuana.
“I’m not saying he was an angel,” said Chris Murray, Murray’s brother. “No matter what was going on, it shouldn’t have happened. If he wasn’t shooting at them, they shouldn’t have shot him.”
That July, protest organizers, including a director of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, planned to block Highway 40 (Interstate 64). This caused a split among protesters when the St. Louis Clergy Coalition and other activists opposed the blockade, which eventually was canceled.
A federal investigation concluded that even though the suspects’ car did not actually move toward the officers, and its occupants had been unarmed, the officers’ belief that they were in danger justified the shootingand, therefore, did not violate the dead men’s civil rights. In 2005, a federal court dismissed the last civil suit, ruling that Kierzkowski had taken reasonable actions to protect himself. Piekutowski had earlier settled with survivors.
CRASH, CHASE
More recently, federal investigators concluded in June that St. Louis police were justified in the shooting of Cary Ball Jr.
Ball, 25, a felon, was shot 21 times by police on April 24, 2013, after Ball crashed a car at the end of a police pursuit. The incident happened after Ball got off work in Creve Coeur and was giving a co-worker a ride.
Police tried to make a traffic stop of Ball’s car at 18th Street and Delmar Boulevard. They said he hit several parked cars near Ninth and Cole streets, stopped and then ran.
Officers Jason Chambers and Timothy Boyce said they saw Ball clutch his waistband as he ran. One said he saw Ball pull a weapon and point it at them, the other said he saw the gun in Ball’s right hand when he turned toward them. Both officers said Ball pointed the gun at them but did not fire.
Police recovered a gun that had been reported stolen in 2012.
Witness accounts varied substantially — from each other and from the officers’ versions. Some said Ball did not have a gun, others said he did, and still others said he tossed it aside when he stopped running.
A police internal investigation concluded in November 2013 that the officers were justified. But because of the numerous conflicting reports, St. Louis police requested that the FBI perform the review, which was finished in June.
A wrongful-death suit filed by Ball’s family is pending, seeking unspecified damages from the officers, department and others.
