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 The civil lawsuit filed in St. Louis County, Missouri, names the
city of Ferguson, former Police Chief Thomas Jackson and former
police officer Darren Wilson as defendants.
The lawsuit seeks $75,000 in compensation, as well as unspecified
punitive damages, and calls for a court order prohibiting the use of
police techniques "that demean, disregard, or underserve its
African-American population".
The shooting last August sparked protests and a national movement
questioning police use of deadly force, especially against
minorities in cities around the country.
The lawsuit alleges that Wilson destroyed evidence after he shot
Brown on the street of the St. Louis suburb last August, saying he
washed blood off his hands and cleared and bagged the gun used in
the shooting.
"We expect to put on evidence that you never heard about before,
that you have never seen," Anthony Gray, one of the lawyers for
Brown's family, said at a news conference on Thursday to discuss the
lawsuit.
 Gray said evidence had not been presented properly in the previous
investigations.
A grand jury in Missouri decided last year not to bring criminal
charges against Wilson. The U.S. Department of Justice later cleared
the police officer of any civil rights violations.
While Brown was unarmed, some witnesses said he had charged Wilson
in the incident.
"We have not had a chance to read through (the lawsuit), but because
it is pending litigation, the city won't be able to make any
comment," Jeff Small, a spokesman for Ferguson, said in a telephone
interview.
The city previously said it would establish a citizen review board,
recruit diverse police officers and put into effect use of body and
dashboard cameras by police officers and patrol cars.
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Lawyers for Wilson were not immediately available to comment.
The lawsuit has been expected since last month, when the family
expressed disappointment in the Justice Department investigation and
said it would sue.
The department's report did find racial bias and a pattern of
illegal actions against African-Americans by the Ferguson Police
Department.
Ferguson Police Chief Jackson resigned last month, within days of
the report's release.
The civil lawsuit filed on Thursday listed incidents of alleged
unlawful stops and arrests of African-Americans in Ferguson. It
asked for the court to assign a monitor to the city's police force
for five years or until "the city of Ferguson has fully and
effectually trained all of its police officers on the constitutional
requirements of the use of deadly force."(This version of the story
corrects dateline to April 23 instead of 22)
(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Curtis Skinner in San
Francisco; Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Clarence Fernandez,
Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)
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