{"id":116178,"date":"2014-12-02T00:28:48","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T07:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wilson-wont-receive-any-severance-package\/"},"modified":"2014-12-02T00:28:48","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T07:28:48","slug":"wilson-wont-receive-any-severance-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wilson-wont-receive-any-severance-package\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson won\u2019t receive any severance package"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Police
Police officers head to a park for crowd control on Sunday in downtown St. Louis. Police and protesters clashed after an NFL football game between the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders, as protests continued following a grand jury\u2019s decision not to indict a white Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr., who was a black teenager.<\/span>Tom Gannam\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wilson won\u2019t receive any further pay or benefits, and he and the city have cut their ties, Mayor James Knowles told reporters a day after Wilson tendered his resignation, which was effective immediately.<\/p>\n

Wilson, who is white, had been on administrative leave since he killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, during an Aug. 9 confrontation. A grand jury decided on Monday of last week not to indict him, sparking days of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and other cities.<\/p>\n

Wilson wrote in his resignation letter that his \u201ccontinued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance I cannot allow.\u201d<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Neil Bruntrager, told The Associated Press that Wilson decided to step aside after police Chief Tom Jackson told him about the alleged threats on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information we had was that there would be actions targeting the Ferguson (police) department or buildings in Ferguson related to the police department,\u201d Bruntrager said. He said Wilson, who had worked for the department for less than three years, and the city were already discussing an exit strategy, acknowledging that Wilson staying on as an officer there would be impossible.<\/p>\n

Many have criticized the authorities\u2019 handling of the case, but Knowles said no leadership changes were in the works. Asked if he would resign, Jackson said flatly, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Brown\u2019s family, said Wilson\u2019s resignation was not a surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always believed that the police officer would do what was in his best interest, both personally and professionally,\u201d Crump said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t believe that he would be able to be effective for the Ferguson community nor the Ferguson Police Department because of the tragic circumstances that claimed the life of Michael Brown Jr.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crump said the family is still considering civil litigation such as a wrongful-death lawsuit, \u201cbut don\u2019t let that get confused with the fact that they really wanted the killer of their child to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Rutherford of Ferguson said she believed Wilson should have not only resigned, but been convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m upset. I have a 16-year-old son. It could\u2019ve been him. I feel that he was absolutely in the wrong,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Others residents were more sympathetic. Reed Voorhees said he hoped Wilson could find similar work \u201csomeplace where he would enjoy life and move on with his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson has spent his career as a police officer, first in neighboring Jennings, then in Ferguson. Bruntrager said it\u2019s all he\u2019s ever wanted to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of what it (the resignation) means, it means at this point he doesn\u2019t have a paycheck,\u201d Bruntrager said. \u201cHe has no income, so he\u2019ll have to make some decisions pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

officers head to a park for crowd control on Sunday in downtown St. Louis. Police and protesters clashed after an NFL football game between the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders, as protests continued following a grand jury\u2019s decision not to indict a white Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[52],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-116178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-law-enforcement"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116178"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=116178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}