Bush earns backing from Michael Brown’s father, a decade after son’s death

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) on Friday unveiled an endorsement from the family of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot and killed by Ferguson, Mo., police in 2014. 

Bush is locked in a close primary race against St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, who defeated a seven-term incumbent in 2018. During his campaign for county prosecutor, Bell vowed to get justice for the Brown family.

In an ad released Friday announcing the endorsement, Brown’s family spoke about that promise. The ad opens with Mike Brown Sr. and his daughter standing side by side. 

“After the murder of my son, Wesley Bell promised to pursue justice for my family,” the elder Brown says. 

His daughter adds, “My brother deserved justice.”

Six years after Brown’s death, then-newly elected Bell declined to bring charges against Darren Wilson, the officer who shot the teenager. 

At the time, Bell said that although the case represented “one of the most significant moments in St. Louis’s history,” an independent review could not prove that Wilson committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law.

“He never brought charges against the killer,” Mike Brown Sr. says in the ad. “He never walked the streets of Ferguson with me. He failed to reform the office.”

Bush has spoken often of her time as an activist leader in Ferguson after the fatal shooting and has said it, and the aftermath, prompted her to run for office.

The progressive “squad” member is facing a tough reelection bid. A poll released in June found Bell ahead of Bush by 1 point, and this week the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board endorsed Bell in a scathing rebuke of Bush.

Still, in her latest ad, the Browns throw their full support behind Bush. 

Bell “used my family for power and now he’s trying to sell out St. Louis,” Brown’s father says. “He doesn’t care about us.”

Brown’s daughter chimes in, closing out the ad with a resounding, “Cori Bush does.”