Protests Again Roil Ferguson, Mo., Over Michael Brown Shooting
Associated Press
According to police, a man prepared to toss a Molotov cocktail as a line of police advances in the distance in Ferguson, Mo. Authorities in the St. Louis suburb used tear gas to try to disperse demonstrations in protest of the police shooting of an unarmed young black man.
Ferguson police chief explains decision to withhold name of officer who shot Michael Brown
It will be weeks before authorities release any details about the Michael Brown shooting
Protests racked this St. Louis suburb for a fifth straight night Wednesday as anger flared anew over the police killing of an unarmed young black man.
Armored personnel carriers and officers carrying assault rifles greeted the demonstrators. When the crowd ignored orders to disperse, officers unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets, witnesses said.
Police sealed off an area that was the scene of vandalism and looting on Sunday night.
“We’ve done everything we can to demonstrate a remarkable amount of restraint,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in an interview outside the command post. “If there was an easy way to fix this, we would have already solved the problem.” Belmar said officers had heard sporadic gunfire.
At least 10 people had been arrested.
Gov. Jay Nixon tweeted late Wednesday that he was canceling appearances Thursday to go to the stricken area.
Tear gas fired in Ferguson
During the nighttime confrontation, protesters with shirts wrapped around their faces held signs that read “Hands up, don’t shoot” as police wearing full body armor closed in on the crowd. The chant has become the mark of the protests; witnesses say 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot Saturday with his hands in the air.
In amateur video posted to social media, police can be overheard telling the group to get out of the area or they would be arrested. Clouds of tear gas are visible in the background.
The confrontation came hours after St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said details of Brown's shooting would not be released anytime soon.
“We are still in the information-gathering part of the investigation,” he said in a televised news conference.
He urged anyone with information to come forward and promised that all evidence would be reviewed, presented to a grand jury and eventually made public.
Withholding details from the public during the criminal investigation will help investigators gauge witnesses’ credibility, he said. Along with the St. Louis County Police Department, the FBI and civil rights attorneys from the Justice Department are conducting parallel investigations.
Racial tension has simmered since Saturday's shooting, beginning with a protest late that day. On Sunday night, vandals rampaged through 12 businesses, burning one and breaking windows.
Ferguson is a working-class suburb of 21,000, where two-thirds of residents are black and police and city officials are predominantly white. Although the largest protests have been peaceful, demonstrations have turned ugly at night.
The nightly protests have mostly been bloodless. But late Tuesday, two people were shot, one critically.
Hours before demonstrations spiraled out of control Wednesday night, protesters had walked down West Florissant Avenue in a permitted march. Some young men at the back of the crowd shouted profanities and raised their middle fingers as they passed a police officer.
About 30 demonstrators, almost all of them black, sat down in the middle of an intersection near a line of about a dozen riot police, all of them white.
The march came as civil rights activists and Brown's family continued to press authorities to release the name of the officer who shot the college-bound student.
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Wednesday that in the aftermath of the shooting, a rumor had misidentified the officer, prompting death threats. Jackson decided to withhold the name of the officer who shot Brown because of the threats.
The officer was injured in the confrontation with Brown and the “side of his face was swollen,” Jackson said, adding that the officer was treated at a hospital. The chief said the officer was “very shaken” by the shooting.
Jackson said the department had asked protesters to rally only during daylight hours for the sake of community safety.
Local law enforcement authorities released only a few details about the shooting, and several witnesses have disputed the police account.
Brown had been walking down a street with a friend Saturday about noon when, according to police, an officer drove up and attempted to get out of his patrol car. Brown pushed the officer back into the car. After an altercation over a weapon by the two -- inside the car -- the officer and Brown exited the vehicle and the fatal shooting occurred, according to Belmar, the St. Louis County police chief. Bystanders, however, said Brown had raised his hands to surrender when he was shot.
Early Wednesday morning, a St. Louis County police officer shot and critically wounded a man who police say pointed a handgun at the officer near the site of the Brown shooting. A woman was also shot in the head and wounded during the area'a sporadic street demonstrations overnight, Jackson said.
The officer-involved shooting, which occurred at 1 a.m., occurred near the intersection of West Florissant Avenue and Chambers Road, close to the site of protests against police, said Officer Brian Schellman, spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department.
Police received a call that four people wearing ski masks and armed with shotguns were in the area, and at the same time several calls were made to police about shots fired in the area, according to a statement from police.
“When officers arrived, multiple subjects began running from the scene. One officer encountered a subject who brandished a handgun, pointing it at the officer. Fearing for his safety and the safety of others in the area, the officer fired shots, striking the subject,” the police statement said. “The subject was transported to a local hospital, where as of this writing, he is listed in critical condition. The subject’s handgun was recovered by police at the scene.”
No other details were released, Schellman said.
In the incident involving the woman, local media reported that she was shot in the head during a drive-by shooting near the Ferguson QuikTrip gas station, which had been looted and burned over the weekend and which has become a gathering point for demonstrators this week.
She was able to call 911 herself, Jackson said. He said he hadn't been briefed yet and couldn't provide more details. Police were reportedly seeking four to five men.
Wednesday evening, a brief contretemps broke out when two journalists were taken into custody. The reporters -- one from the Washington Post, the other from the Huffington Post -- were quickly released after the intervention of Ferguson Police Chief Jackson.
Twitter: @mattdpearce
Times staff writers Ryan Parker and Lauren Raab in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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| Demonstration in Ferguson attacked by police teargas on Aug. 14, 2014. |
According to police, a man prepared to toss a Molotov cocktail as a line of police advances in the distance in Ferguson, Mo. Authorities in the St. Louis suburb used tear gas to try to disperse demonstrations in protest of the police shooting of an unarmed young black man.
Ferguson police chief explains decision to withhold name of officer who shot Michael Brown
It will be weeks before authorities release any details about the Michael Brown shooting
Protests racked this St. Louis suburb for a fifth straight night Wednesday as anger flared anew over the police killing of an unarmed young black man.
Armored personnel carriers and officers carrying assault rifles greeted the demonstrators. When the crowd ignored orders to disperse, officers unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets, witnesses said.
Police sealed off an area that was the scene of vandalism and looting on Sunday night.
“We’ve done everything we can to demonstrate a remarkable amount of restraint,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in an interview outside the command post. “If there was an easy way to fix this, we would have already solved the problem.” Belmar said officers had heard sporadic gunfire.
At least 10 people had been arrested.
Gov. Jay Nixon tweeted late Wednesday that he was canceling appearances Thursday to go to the stricken area.
Tear gas fired in Ferguson
During the nighttime confrontation, protesters with shirts wrapped around their faces held signs that read “Hands up, don’t shoot” as police wearing full body armor closed in on the crowd. The chant has become the mark of the protests; witnesses say 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot Saturday with his hands in the air.
In amateur video posted to social media, police can be overheard telling the group to get out of the area or they would be arrested. Clouds of tear gas are visible in the background.
The confrontation came hours after St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said details of Brown's shooting would not be released anytime soon.
“We are still in the information-gathering part of the investigation,” he said in a televised news conference.
He urged anyone with information to come forward and promised that all evidence would be reviewed, presented to a grand jury and eventually made public.
Withholding details from the public during the criminal investigation will help investigators gauge witnesses’ credibility, he said. Along with the St. Louis County Police Department, the FBI and civil rights attorneys from the Justice Department are conducting parallel investigations.
Racial tension has simmered since Saturday's shooting, beginning with a protest late that day. On Sunday night, vandals rampaged through 12 businesses, burning one and breaking windows.
Ferguson is a working-class suburb of 21,000, where two-thirds of residents are black and police and city officials are predominantly white. Although the largest protests have been peaceful, demonstrations have turned ugly at night.
The nightly protests have mostly been bloodless. But late Tuesday, two people were shot, one critically.
Hours before demonstrations spiraled out of control Wednesday night, protesters had walked down West Florissant Avenue in a permitted march. Some young men at the back of the crowd shouted profanities and raised their middle fingers as they passed a police officer.
About 30 demonstrators, almost all of them black, sat down in the middle of an intersection near a line of about a dozen riot police, all of them white.
The march came as civil rights activists and Brown's family continued to press authorities to release the name of the officer who shot the college-bound student.
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Wednesday that in the aftermath of the shooting, a rumor had misidentified the officer, prompting death threats. Jackson decided to withhold the name of the officer who shot Brown because of the threats.
The officer was injured in the confrontation with Brown and the “side of his face was swollen,” Jackson said, adding that the officer was treated at a hospital. The chief said the officer was “very shaken” by the shooting.
Jackson said the department had asked protesters to rally only during daylight hours for the sake of community safety.
Local law enforcement authorities released only a few details about the shooting, and several witnesses have disputed the police account.
Brown had been walking down a street with a friend Saturday about noon when, according to police, an officer drove up and attempted to get out of his patrol car. Brown pushed the officer back into the car. After an altercation over a weapon by the two -- inside the car -- the officer and Brown exited the vehicle and the fatal shooting occurred, according to Belmar, the St. Louis County police chief. Bystanders, however, said Brown had raised his hands to surrender when he was shot.
Early Wednesday morning, a St. Louis County police officer shot and critically wounded a man who police say pointed a handgun at the officer near the site of the Brown shooting. A woman was also shot in the head and wounded during the area'a sporadic street demonstrations overnight, Jackson said.
The officer-involved shooting, which occurred at 1 a.m., occurred near the intersection of West Florissant Avenue and Chambers Road, close to the site of protests against police, said Officer Brian Schellman, spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department.
Police received a call that four people wearing ski masks and armed with shotguns were in the area, and at the same time several calls were made to police about shots fired in the area, according to a statement from police.
“When officers arrived, multiple subjects began running from the scene. One officer encountered a subject who brandished a handgun, pointing it at the officer. Fearing for his safety and the safety of others in the area, the officer fired shots, striking the subject,” the police statement said. “The subject was transported to a local hospital, where as of this writing, he is listed in critical condition. The subject’s handgun was recovered by police at the scene.”
No other details were released, Schellman said.
In the incident involving the woman, local media reported that she was shot in the head during a drive-by shooting near the Ferguson QuikTrip gas station, which had been looted and burned over the weekend and which has become a gathering point for demonstrators this week.
She was able to call 911 herself, Jackson said. He said he hadn't been briefed yet and couldn't provide more details. Police were reportedly seeking four to five men.
Wednesday evening, a brief contretemps broke out when two journalists were taken into custody. The reporters -- one from the Washington Post, the other from the Huffington Post -- were quickly released after the intervention of Ferguson Police Chief Jackson.
Twitter: @mattdpearce
Times staff writers Ryan Parker and Lauren Raab in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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