FERGUSON, Mo. _ Fred Watson won a small victory in what has been a long battle this week.
More than five years have passed since the Navy veteran was held at gunpoint by a Ferguson police officer before being arrested, having his car towed and being jailed.
More than two years have passed since Watson was featured, without being named, in a Justice Department report that blasted police in Ferguson for targeting African-Americans, making unconstitutional stops and arrests, and treating the city's police and court system like an ATM.
On Monday, all nine municipal charges against Watson were quietly dropped.
The Ferguson prosecutor did not notify Watson nor his lawyers with the nonprofit ArchCity Defenders law firm and offered no explanation, said lawyer Blake Strode.
The prosecutor, Lee Clayton Goodman, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Watson's case fell within the guidelines set out in Ferguson's consent decree with the Justice Department, in which the city agreed to dismiss certain municipal court cases.
After being charged, Watson lost his security clearance, then his six-figure job with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, then his home.
The $58,000 he had saved for his first two years of law school has been spent on food and other daily expenses.
Watson said he's battled depression and is broke. He has been living out of storage units and sleeping in basements and the back seat of his car in Illinois.
But Watson said he was "pleased that we moved (the case) from step two to step three."
Step one, he says, was finding lawyers with enough courage to take his case.
Step three will be the restoration of his character, maligned by the arrest and charges, and an attempt to remake his life.
But it will never be like it was, he says.
"I can't get the five years back," he said. His children will not be able to get back missed educational or extracurricular activities, like the Junior Olympics. He will not forget the embarrassment.
"We cannot be made whole. We cannot get that time back," he said.
Still pending is a July 31 federal lawsuit Watson filed against Officer Eddie Boyd III and Ferguson.
The suit says that on Aug. 1, 2012, Boyd held him at gunpoint and filed bogus charges against him. It also says that Boyd illegally searched Watson's car, and $2,000 later turned up missing.
Police Chief Delrish Moss declined to comment on the case last month, citing the pending civil suit. The city and Boyd have not yet filed a response, and no lawyer is yet listed for them.
In an interview Tuesday at his lawyer's offices in St. Louis, Watson said that after a regular basketball game in Forestwood Park in Ferguson, he was cooling off in his car, watching a nearby baseball game.
He and his friends had already seen Boyd arrest several people at the park that day.
When Boyd approached, Watson lowered his car window. Boyd began by asking if Watson knew why he'd pulled him over.
Watson says he told Boyd he was parked. He wouldn't provide his Social Security number to Boyd, explaining that given where he works, he couldn't provide that information.
Boyd drew his gun, even though Watson says he was not yelling or making any sudden moves.
Watson refused to get out of the car until other officers arrived. When they did, he got out, hands up, and then closed his door with his foot. He says he told police that they did not have permission to search the car.
Asked why, Watson says that he is a veteran of police stops, harassment and the abuse of power, although he also stresses that he had never been arrested before the incident, or since.
Watson said Boyd, despite not having permission to search or a search warrant, "just destroy(ed)" the car, throwing things everywhere.
Watson was arrested and given seven tickets. Boyd later added two other charges: failure to comply and making a false declaration in retaliation for Watson's complaints, the suit says.
After Watson borrowed $700 for his own bail, he had to pay more to get his car out of the tow lot.
Watson said the missing $2,000 was tuition money for his kids' private school.
The Justice Department report says one of the charges against Watson was making a false declaration for using a shortened form of his first name and an address that was legitimate but was different from the one on his license.
For years, Watson and three sets of lawyers were given conflicting information about the case and whether the charges had been dropped.
Strode said the dismissal will "undoubtedly" help Watson's civil suit, and said that Watson's lawyers have long argued that there was no probable cause for the arrest.
Strode said ArchCity was going to "do everything we can" to help Watson get his job back.
An NGA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency spokesperson did not respond to a reporter's inquiry about the case Tuesday.
Strode praised Watson as "meticulous," "careful," "sincere" and "dogged" in trying to get his case resolved.
He said Watson's case "exposes the falsehood" that changes have been made at the state level and in Ferguson since the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by then-Officer Darren Wilson.
"Until yesterday, Fred's case was still pending and until this day he hasn't been made whole," he said.
