Officer-involved shooting as gunshots ring out late Sunday in Ferguson
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http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/officer-involved-shooting-as-gunshots-ring-out-late-sunday-in/article_baaf86fd-2de0-53a7-b840-1941159aa5c7.html
FERGUSON • A peaceful day of protest and remembrance dissolved into chaos late Sunday after shots were fired. St. Louis County police said an officer was involved in a shooting, but the circumstances were not immediately known.
At least 15 shots rang out about 11:15 p.m. as a standoff continued between police and protesters who had blocked West Florissant Avenue north of Ferguson Avenue.
In a chaotic scene, police officers, reporters and protesters ran for cover. People sprinted across the street and dived behind parked cars.
Ferguson’s interim police chief, Andre Anderson, had just finished a television interview saying officers were placed throughout the community to protect businesses, and he was hoping to be patient and allow the protesters to march peacefully.
The law enforcement officers had threatened to arrest protesters who stayed in the street. Protesters by then were estimated at fewer than 100 and were outnumbered by members of the media, observers said.
The violence came exactly one year after the police shooting of Michael Brown. But the day was mostly peaceful with about 1,000 people gathering at the spot in the Canfield Green apartment complex before embarking on a “silent march” with Brown’s family members up West Florissant Avenue.
“We came because it’s still needed,” said Dumine DePorres, who was among a group of 15 people who traveled from Detroit for Ferguson-related events this weekend. “We need to start some conversations that are not just one way, about justice,” he said.
The marchers, whose number swelled to more than 1,000 just after noon Sunday, were silent during the 1.5-mile walk up West Florissant Avenue and across Chambers Road to Greater St. Mark Family Church out of respect for Brown, said James Evans Muhammad of Black Educators and Lawyers for Justice.
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A peaceful day of protest and remembrance dissolved into chaos
Of course it will.The law enforcement officers had threatened to arrest protesters who stayed in the street.
Of course they would. -
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Smfh
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on the anniversary of mike browns death....ferguson pd killed somebody else?
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My only question is how the ? did it escalate? To an all out gun battle? ???
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ChillaDaKilla wrote: »My only question is how the ? did it escalate? To an all out gun battle? ???
Reports say that the guy walked up to the police van and shot at the cops while they were inside the van
Also, there were reports of two different groups within the crowd exchanging gunfire. -
Where are the details?
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They need to find out who started that and why. Now people are mad because the media is covering the shooting. If outside agitators are starting this ? somebody need to get that under control! I find it hard to believe that someone from Ferguson would do that after what happend there last year.
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Don't believe ? they say or put out. They will always come back and 'correct it' later.
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That dude. Blue to the end.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/us/shooting-ferguson-michael-brown.html?_r=0Emergency Declared in Ferguson After Shooting
FERGUSON, Mo. — St. Louis County declared a state of emergency Monday, and braced for possible unrest, as prosecutors filed charges against an 18-year-old who was shot and critically wounded by the police overnight on the periphery of demonstrations commemorating the killing a year ago of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white officer.
The declaration, by the St. Louis County executive, Steve Stenger, allows the county police chief, Jon Belmar, to take control of police emergency management in and around Ferguson.
“In light of last night’s violence and unrest in the city of Ferguson,” Mr. Stenger said, “and the potential for harm to persons and property, I am exercising my authority as county executive to issue a state of emergency, effective immediately.”
Shortly before Mr. Stenger’s decision, county prosecutors announced that they had filed charges against Tyrone Harris, of St. Louis, who the police said was critically injured during gun battle overnight with the police.
Mr. Harris was charged with 10 counts, including four counts of felony assault on a law enforcement officer. He remained in critical condition in the hospital after he was struck by several bullets fired by St. Louis County police officers.
The authorities said the shooting was not related to protests, which continued Monday in Ferguson and neighboring St. Louis.
Also, Monday, the police arrested dozens of people outside the federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis on trespassing charges.
The protesters had arrived outside the courthouse singing, chanting “Black lives matter” and “We’ve got to fight back,” and listening as clergy members spoke about systemic injustices against African-Americans. After reading a proclamation calling for changes and equal treatment for all, some marchers climbed over a barrier in an attempt to deliver the list to Richard Callahan, the United States attorney for Eastern Missouri. Stopped by the police, they sat on the steps of the building.
After several warnings to disperse, the police arrested Cornel West, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, and others who had refused to disperse.
The Rev. Mike Angell, an Episcopal priest in the St. Louis area, said he believed the presence of the clergy at the protest was important after the police shooting Sunday night. “With what happened last night, I felt it was important for clergy to stand with the people seeking justice,” he said
The shooting Sunday night came after rival groups began firing at each other on the west side of West Florissant Avenue, the center of the Ferguson protests, Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County Police Department said. Chief Belmar said that there had been at least two other shootings in the area as well, but that they were not connected to protests.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch denounced the shootings, saying that “violence obscures any message of peaceful protest and places the community, as well as the officers who seek to protect it, in harm’s way.
“The weekend’s events were peaceful and promoted a message of reconciliation and healing,” Ms. Lynch said in a statement. “But incidents of violence, such as we saw last night, are contrary to both that message, along with everything that all of us, including this group, have worked to achieve over the past year.”
Chief Belmar said Mr. Harris had been among two groups firing at each other.
Four plainclothes officers, who had watched Mr. Harris run across a parking lot on the opposite side of the avenue, drove their unmarked sport utility vehicle, with its interior lights flashing, toward him, the authorities said. Mr. Harris responded by shooting at the officers, striking their vehicle several times, Chief Belmar said. The police returned fire from inside the sport utility vehicle and then chased him on foot, he said.
Each of the four officers shot at Mr. Harris, who continued to fire at them, and dozens of gunshots were fired before he was struck by multiple bullets, Chief Belmar said.
A gun that the police recovered from the shooting victim was a 9-millimeter Sig Sauer that was reported stolen last year, the authorities said. Chief Belmar said that the four detectives involved had from six to 12 years of experience, but declined to provide their names or other information.
Gov. Jay Nixon said in a statement on Monday that the violence represented “a sad turn of events,” but expressed hope that Monday’s planned demonstrations would be peaceful, so that the community could continue to move ahead.
The Ferguson Action Council, a coalition of local protest organizations, said on Monday that the police should not have sent plainclothes officers without body cameras to an area where protests were being held.
“After a year of protest and conversation around police accountability, having plainclothes officers without body cameras and proper identification in the protest setting leaves us with only the officer’s account of the incident, which is clearly problematic,” Kayla Reed, a field organizer with the Organization for Black Struggle, said in a statement.
The shooting, which came toward the end of an otherwise peaceful day, was another vexing turn for activists and the authorities alike. It was the second consecutive night of gunfire on West Florissant Avenue.
“They were criminals; they weren’t protesters,” Chief Belmar said of the groups exchanging gunfire. “Protesters are the people out there talking about a way to effect change. We can’t afford to have this kind of violence, not only on a night like this, but any point in time if we’re going to move forward in the right direction.”
As day broke on Monday, traffic again flowed on West Florissant Avenue, but several nearby parking lots remained blocked by yellow police tape. County police officers examined the front of one building near where the shooting involving the officers occurred. Other officers stood guard.
The flashes of violence signaled a cruel end to a day that in many ways had seemed festive and hopeful, with activists from across the country descending on Ferguson to push for changes in the police treatment of blacks. During a humid day, people spoke with renewed vigor about the movement that was started after Mr. Brown, 18, was shot and killed here by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.
After hundreds gathered around the spot where Mr. Brown was killed, to speak of remembrance and defiance, the dead 18-year-old’s father led a march to a nearby church for a service.
As night came and it began to rain, a large crowd gathered on West Florissant Avenue, and a group of people broke into a beauty supply store and stole a cash register.
With police officers in pursuit, the men dropped the machine and ran away.
The authorities then sent a group of officers to stand in front of stores that had been burglarized. Later, when the police sought to secure a nearby strip of stores, their cars were pelted with objects, Chief Belmar said, so they pulled out.
Demonstrators then blocked the road, and the police donned riot gear and used a megaphone to order them to move on.
“This is the Ferguson Police Department,” Sgt. Harry Dilworth, one of the department’s few black officers, said into a megaphone. “You must leave the roadway immediately and remain on the sidewalk or be subject to arrest.”
But after the demonstrators had largely moved out of the street, a number of police cars with their sirens on sped down West Florissant Avenue, as dozens of officers in riot gear formed a skirmish line. Protesters returned to the street, some moving toward the officers, while chanting slogans. -
So now the interstate (70) is getting blocked............
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I want to know how it all started
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All the racists on Facebook say it all started because we're all just dumb ? that need to go back to Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtrSXG3Biso
