Ferguson: Darren Wilson 'Knows He Will Never Be A Police Officer Again,' Lawyer Says

Attorneys representing Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Mo., police officer at the center of a firestorm over the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown, said he has accepted that his career in law enforcement is over, as reports surfaced Wilson is in talks to resign his post at the Ferguson Police Department.

“Realistically speaking, Darren will never be a police officer again, and he understands that,” lawyer Jim Towey told NBC News. “Going forward, it will be school and trying to carve out a new niche, new career, for he and his family.”

Neil Bruntrager, another of Wilson’s attorneys, said it’s a “matter of when, not if” the officer will step down and he may give up policing as a profession altogether. “He’s on paid leave, and there are discussions that are going on right now to separate from the department in an amicable fashion,” the lawyer told CNN.

“He knows how to do the job, and could do the job. He believes that if he ever went back to a department, he would put other officers at risk. And he just, he won’t do that, he won’t do that,” NBC News quoted Bruntrager as saying.

Wilson has become the focal point of national and international outrage, after a grand jury in Missouri declined to indict him over the Aug. 9 killing of Brown.

Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., branded Wilson “a murderer” in an interview with CNN. “He understood his actions. He understood exactly what he was doing. You know, he didn’t have a second thought, a pushback thought, or nothing. He was intending to kill someone. That’s how I look at it.”

Attorney Bruntrager told KDSK that “people have offered bounties on [Wilson’s] life and that sort of thing.” The police officer had been in hiding for more than three months, after his address was revealed online, according to the Washington Post.

In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that was shown this week, Wilson said, “I have a clean conscience because I know I did my job right.”