Police in the U.S. city of Ferguson, Missouri, said a man was in critical condition Monday after being shot by police in an exchange of gunfire on the sidelines of what had been a day of peaceful marches to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.
St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar said plainclothes detectives had been monitoring a man they feared was armed, and that he was then involved in exchange of 40 or 50 shots between two groups of people before shooting the officers’ unmarked vehicle multiple times. The four detectives all returned fire and the man went down, the chief said.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the man’s father identified him as 18-year-old Tyrone Harris, Jr. and said he was a “close” friend of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was killed by police in Ferguson last year.
Belmar told a news conference that the outbreak of violence was “an impediment to positive change,” stressing that the shooting did not involve those demonstrating on the anniversary of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s killing.
“They were criminals, they weren’t protesters,” Belmar said. “Protesters are people that are out there that are talking about a way to effect change, whatever that may be. That’s not what’s happening here.”
He said police first increased their presence in that area after reports of looting, and that some people threw bottles that shattered near officers. He also reported one officer was injured by a flying brick Sunday night in Ferguson.
Belmar said he believed the violence was avoidable, and that too many people in Ferguson were working too hard for it to happen.
“There are a lot of emotions, I get it, but this is something different and we can’t sustain this as a community as we move forward,” he said, asking for help in identifying those who go beyond peaceful protests.
After the shootings, police ordered people still gathered in the area to leave and used smoke grenades to disperse the crowd. Several of those in the crowd criticized the police on Twitter, saying the smoke was fired after people were already complying.
Earlier Sunday, the situation was peaceful as marchers began at the site where Brown was shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, during a street confrontation. The demonstrations that followed Brown’s killing threw the St. Louis suburb into the national spotlight and sparked calls for better treatment of minorities by police.
Brown’s father, Michael Brown, Sr., asked for protesters to observe 4-1/2 minutes of silence to represent the roughly 4-1/2 hours his son’s body lay in the street after he was killed. The observance was followed by a silent march aimed at honoring those who have died at the hands of police.
Brown said his family is still grieving, but he believes his son’s legacy can be seen in the increased awareness of police shootings.
Although a state grand jury cleared Wilson of Brown’s death last November, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice found that blacks were unfairly targeted by the majority white police force in the city.
The report said that while blacks comprised 67 percent of Ferguson’s 21,000 people, 93 percent of the arrests were of African-Americans. The report said that 85 percent of all routine traffic stops were of black drivers and 90 percent of all traffic citations issued.
The investigation faulted a combination of racial bias among police and an unusually heavy reliance on fines and fees for city revenue. The latter have disproportionately affected blacks, further straining their trust in law enforcement and the judiciary system.
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