Officer Darren Wilson was not indicted on any of the five possible charges that were being posed after the death of Michael Brown.

Wilson shot Brown, an 18-year-old, unarmed man Aug. 9. Shortly after, social media boomed with people in Ferguson, Mo., upset about the lack of punishment that Wilson was facing for shooting Brown. Protests and riots broke out in the city’s streets for weeks after Brown’s death.

A grand jury made up of 12 members of the Ferguson community were selected in May, months before the shooting occurred, and had to decide whether or not to indict Wilson. A grand jury is to be representative of the community based on its population. The jury is comprised of peers comparable to Wilson. The primarily white jury better represented the defendant, and it did not represent the views of the community as a whole.

Ferguson’s population as of 2010 is roughly 67 percent African-American and roughly 29 percent Caucasian, according USA Today. The jury that was supposed to represent the Ferguson citizens in the Brown case was made up of three African-American people and nine Caucasian people. That means only a quarter of the jury was African-American compared to the two-thirds of Ferguson that is African-American.

The police department in Ferguson is composed of 53 officers, and only three of those officers are African-American.

A white police officer shooting a black, no matter how it is looked at, is going to come down to an issue of race. Similar to this case was the case of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old boy from Miami, Fla., who was shot by neighborhood watch officer George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed, but because Florida has a stand-your-ground law, Zimmerman walked away without punishment.

In the Brown case, the police department stood behind their officer and his decision to shoot Brown. The community, with their voices in the street riots and on social media, stood behind Michael Brown and his family.

Perhaps if the composition of the jury had been more comparable to that of the community, the decision of the grand jury may have come out differently.

No matter the outcome, Brown’s case is an example of poor race relations in the United States, and we must work peacefully to improve those relations and stereotypes in our country.

In these moments of discouragement for members of the Ferguson community, it is extremely important that any protests that may occur happen peacefully. The violent actions that took place against Michael Brown should not be followed up by more continuous violent acts but by courageous acts of peaceful protest by people on either side standing up for what they believe in.