Dorian Johnson, the friend who was with Mike Brown when he was shot and killed by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, is dead at the age of 33.
According to KSDK, officers responding to an 8:30 a.m. call found Johnson shot. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds. Johnson was killed not far from the street where Brown was killed 11 years ago.
Police did tell the media a suspect has been taken into custody, and charges are being sought through the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, but no further information regarding the suspect or a positive motive were provided.
Both KSDK and St Louis Public Radio report that there were earlier rumors of police involvement in the shooting, but Ferguson Police Department Public Information Officer Patricia Washington was quick to shut that down, saying the investigation into Johnson’s death is ongoing.
Dorian Johnson was just 22 years old when he witnessed the shooting death of his 18-year-old friend on Aug. 9, 2014.
It was Johnson’s explosive remembrance of how his friend was killed that put him front and center of the brewing resistance movement that grew in the wake of the killings of both Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin.
As the Washington Post reported in 2019:
“He put his hands in the air,” Johnson said of Brown in his final moments. “He started to get down, but the officer still approached with his weapon drawn. And he fired several more shots. And my friend died.”
The killing of Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014, became one of the most incendiary events in American history, exposing deep divides over race and justice and helping to spark a national movement for police accountability. Johnson’s assertion that Brown was trying to surrender when Wilson killed him spawned that movement’s most powerful rallying cry: “Hands up, don’t shoot!”
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