Dorian Johnson, a friend of Mike Brown who was present during his fatal officer-involved shooting, was also fatally shot over the weekend.
CNN reports that the 33-year-old was involved in a shooting at around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday in Ferguson, Missouri. The location of the incident was less than a mile from where Brown died on Canfield Drive.
Melissa Price Smith, St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, told the outlet that police detained a suspect, whom they later released and didn’t charge.
“This appears to be a domestic incident involving a claim of self-defense,” she said in a statement. She shared that the investigation between her office and the Ferguson police remains open.
The Ferguson police refuted rumors that an officer shot Johnson.
“There had been earlier rumors that this was an officer-involved shooting; however, that information is incorrect. No officers, Ferguson or otherwise, were involved in this incident other than to begin our investigation,” the police department said in a Facebook statement.
White police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Brown on Aug. 19, 2014 in Ferguson. At the time, Johnson said he was with Brown during the incident. During the initial confrontation, Wilson shot Brown in the hand through the driver’s side window of the police car. The confrontation continued moments later, when Wilson opened fire again on Brown, shooting him a total of six times.
Johnson later told police that Brown had faced Wilson and held up his hands, but Johnson’s claim was contested after a DOJ investigation revealed varying accounts from other witnesses. Still, Johnson’s account of the shooting galvanized the “hands up, don’t shoot” chant that took over protests that year.
Wilson later claimed self-defense in court and was ultimately not indicted by a grand jury. Brown’s family later sued the city of St. Louis for wrongful death, which was settled in 2017.
In addition to Johnson, several others connected to the Mike Brown protests have mysteriously died since 2014.
In 2019, NBC reported that six other men who had ties to Ferguson had also died. Two men—Deandre Joshua and Darren Seals—were found dead inside scorched vehicles; MarShawn McCarrel, Edward Crawford Jr., and Danye Jones allegedly died by suicide; and Bassem Masri died of an apparent overdose on a bus.