Key Witness in Michael Brown's Death Arrested in Ferguson on Drug Charges
St. Louis police arrested the man who was walking with Michael Brown when he was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.
Police say that Dorian Johnson, 23, was arrested after he allegedly interfered with an arrest and was seen "discarding suspected narcotics on the ground" on Wednesday, said St. Louis County Police spokeswoman Leah K. Freeman, according to CNN.
Two other men were also arrested with Johnson on drug charges and suspicion of resisting arrest around 3:20 p.m., said St. Louis police, according to the New York Daily News. Police added that all three men were on a street among a "large group of subjects who were possibly armed with firearms."
Johnson's arrest came on the same day he filed a lawsuit against the city of Ferguson, its former police chief and the former cop who shot Brown, Darren Wilson. In the lawsuit, Johnson claims he suffered emotional pain and distress on the day that Wilson stopped him and Brown, CNN affiliates KTVI and KPLR reported.
Although Wilson has been cleared of wrongdoing, the suit charges that Wilson targeted him without probable cause in addition to accusing him of assaulting Johnson and violating his civil rights.
"Officer Wilson acted with either deliberate indifference and/or reckless disregard toward [Johnson]," the lawsuit states.
As a result, he is seeking at least $25,000 in damages. He is also asking for an injunction to stop what he describes as discriminatory police practices in Ferguson.
Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, was shot by a white cop in August 2014. After announcing that Wilson would not be charged in the shooting, the Justice Department released a scathing report that revealed the Ferguson Police Department was guilty of systemic racism against African-Americans. The report also revealed that the city's former top court clerk and two high level police officers exchanged several racist and religiously insensitive emails between 2008 and 2011.
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