Darren Dean Wilson (born May 14, 1986) is an American former police officer. He is known for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed African American man, on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. He has been exonerated of criminal wrongdoing twice with respect to his shooting of Brown. The first occurrence came in November 2014, when a grand jury chose not to indict him. The second came in March 2015, when the United States Department of Justice released a report concluding that Wilson's use of force against Brown was defensible, and also cleared Wilson of having violated Brown's civil rights.