The prosecutor who begins presenting evidence in the Michael Brown shooting to a grand jury on Wednesday accused Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon of "dodging" a decision on whether he will stay on the case. Nixon has suggested that St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch could recuse himself, but McCulloch said it's up to the governor to remove him. "It’s more Nixon doublespeak," McCulloch told reporters on Wednesday. "Someone needs to get him to answer that question: Are you leaving McCulloch on the case or are you taking him off the case?" He added, "I have no intention of walking away from the responsibilities and the duties that have been entrusted to me."
Some local leaders have protested McCulloch's ties to police, including the fact that his father was killed in the line of duty. The prosecutor's voice was choked with emotion as he recalled being told 50 years ago that his father wasn't coming home, but he said it was "irrelevant" to how he would handle the investigation into Officer Darren Wilson's shooting of Brown. "I know what it’s like to lose a loved one to violence," he said. "I know the pain the Brown family is going through right now."
McCulloch said the protests that engulfed Ferguson after the shooting led him to expedite the presentation of evidence to the grand jury that is currently seated, but that the process would last until mid-October. He said the panel is hearing other cases but its term will be extended so it can focus only on Wilson. None of the evidence — including the results of a federal probe into the shooting — will be released until the grand jury decides whether to indict Wilson.
