This case seeks justice for the extrajudicial killing of Mike Brown and violations of the human rights of Mike and his mother Lezley McSpadden under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Mike Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson. Mike was walking down the street with a friend, when Wilson approached them in his police vehicle and began hurling expletives at them to move onto the sidewalk. He followed the teenagers in his vehicle and hit Brown with the driver’s side door. After a scuffle near the police car, Wilson fired two shots. Mike fled and Wilson pursued on foot. After Mike stopped and faced Wilson with his hands raised, the officer fired again, hitting Mike six times. As people from the neighborhood streamed out to see what had happened, Mike’s body lay on the Ferguson street for hours.

The next day, protests erupted in the St. Louis suburb and across the country. The demonstrations were reignited in October 2014 when a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. In 2015, a Justice Department report cleared Wilson once more. In July 2020, the St. Louis top prosecutor, who had reopened the case, came to the same conclusion: there would be no charges against Wilson.

Despite the emergence of movements such as Black Lives Matter, justice for Mike Brown and his mother, Lezley McSpadden, remains elusive. International human rights law challenges this ongoing impunity for police violence in the United States, especially against Black people.

What is the legal argument in this case?

This case asks the Commission to declare that the United States violated the rights of Mike Brown and his mother Lezley McSpadden to life, liberty and personal security for arbitrarily killing Mike; the right to equality before the law for operating a discriminatory policing regime in Ferguson; the right to a fair trial due to the St. Louis prosecutor’s bias and manipulation of grand jury procedures to avoid bring charges against the police officer who killed Mike and due to the federal government’s failure to thoroughly and independently investigate; the right to protection from arbitrary arrest for detaining Mike on arbitrary grounds; and the right to due process of law for failure to use an objectively fair process of investigation.

What is the status of this case?

On July 10, 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a public hearing on Mike’s case, inviting Lezley and U.S officials to testify, in the first-ever Commission hearing on an individual case about U.S. police violence.

A merits decision on the case remains pending with the Commission.

August 9, 2023

Petitioners’ final observations

July 10, 2023

Public hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

July 5, 2023

Petitioners’ merits brief

June 27, 2023

Affidavit of Lezley McSpadden

December 18, 2022

Commission report finding the petition admissible

May 24, 2015

Petition filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights