On Wednesday the Department of Justice announced that it will not press charges against Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown. Claiming that Wilson's actions did "...not constitute prosecutable violations under the applicable federal criminal rights statute."
The report also states that the DOJ found no credible evidence that Brown had his hands up when he was shot:
“There is no credible evidence that Wilson willfully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat.”
The speculation by some that he did led to "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" becoming the rallying cry for a movement that recently conducted several large rallies against what they see as police brutality.
"Although there are several individuals who have stated that Brown held his hands up in an unambiguous sign of surrender prior to Wilson shooting him dead, their accounts do not support a prosecution of Wilson. As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witness's own prior statements with no explanation, credible or otherwise, as to why those accounts changed over time."
The ruling did not come as much of a surprise as the Federal Government would have needed to prove that Brown's civil rights were violated in some way in order to charge Wilson. This means it would have had to prove that race played a factor in Wilson's decision to shoot Brown. No evidence has ever surfaced suggesting that this was the case.