Reuters/Missouri
A US police officer shot and killed a black man after he pointed a loaded pistol at him in a St. Louis suburb near where an unarmed black teen was killed by a white officer in August, police said on Wednesday.
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Recent US police shootings of black suspects The killing of a young black man by police on Tuesday in the US state of Missouri joins a long list of similar incidents which have stoked racial tensions: July 17: African American father-of-six Eric Garner, 43, dies after being held in a police chokehold while he is being arrested for selling individual cigarettes illegally in New York. A coroner declares the death a homicide, but a grand jury opts not to charge the white officer involved, unleashing demonstrations in several cities. August 9: A white police officer kills an unarmed black teenager, aspiring college student Michael Brown, 18, unleashing ten days of protests and riots and heavy-handed police tactics in Ferguson, Missouri. The later decision not to indict the police officer, Darren Wilson, prompts riots in Ferguson and raises racial tensions. November 20: An unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, 28, a father of a young daughter, is shot by a white police officer who opens fire in a dimly lit staircase at a Brooklyn, New York apartment block. On the day of his funeral on December 7, New Yorkers take to the streets to denounce the spate of police killings. November 22: In Cleveland, Ohio, a video of US police officers shooting dead Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy carrying a replica gun seconds after confronting him stokes anger. December 23: Police say they shot dead an African American teenager in the town of Berkley, near Ferguson. Police said an officer opened fire on the teen who was carrying a handgun at a petrol station, hitting him several times and killing him.
In another drama, on December 20 an African American gunman with an apparent grudge kills two New York police officers, Wenjian Liu, 32 and Rafael Ramos, 40. They are shot in cold blood in the head in their car parked in front of an poor apartment block in Brooklyn. Their killer, a suspected member of the "Black Guerilla Family" gang, which is known to the police, then commits suicide on the platform of a subway station. |
The shooting took place late on Tuesday at a Mobil On The Run gasoline station in Berkeley, Missouri, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told a news conference.
He called the shooting a tragedy both for the young man's family and for the officer.
"There are no winners here. There are nothing but losers," Belmar said.
A crowd of 200 to 300 people gathered at the station after the shooting, and bricks and three fireworks were thrown, two of them at the roughly 50 officers at the scene, he said.
Two officers were injured. Four people were arrested and charged with assault, said Belmar. Police released security camera video of the incident.
The shooting occurred after the officer, a six-year veteran of the Berkeley Police Department who was responding to a report of a larceny, got out of his car to talk to two men at the gas station.
One of them pointed a loaded 9mm handgun at the officer across the hood of the police car, Belmar said.
Pulling his own weapon, the officer stepped backward, stumbled, and fired three shots. One of them struck the man with the gun, a second hit a police car tire, and the third cannot be accounted for, he said.
Paramedics declared the man dead at the scene.
SECOND MAN SOUGHT
Authorities did not identify the dead man, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named him as Antonio Martin, 18. The newspaper quoted his mother as saying he was with his girlfriend around the time of the shooting.
Belmar did not name the officer, who has been put on administrative leave. Police are seeking the second man involved in the incident.
The officer had been given a body camera but was not wearing it at the time of the shooting. His car's dashboard camera also was not activated when the incident took place, Belmar said.
A St. Louis County prosecutor has been assigned to the case and police have questioned two witnesses, he said.
Berkeley neighbors the suburb of Ferguson, where police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9, a killing that fueled criticism of the way police and the criminal justice system treat minority groups.
Protests in Ferguson have taken place for months and spilled over into violence when a grand jury decided not to charge Wilson a month ago.
Demonstrations in cities across the country gained in momentum when a New York grand jury decided not to charge police over the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man whom police tackled and put in a choke hold.
Before the incident in Berkeley, about 200 people marched in New York on Tuesday, defying Mayor Bill de Blasio's call for protests to be suspended after two police officers were killed in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Saturday in an apparent revenge attack.
In Los Angeles, police said they would investigate whether any officers were involved in the singing of a song, at a party organized by a retired policeman, that poked fun at the Ferguson killing.
The lyrics of the song, on a video posted on entertainment news website TMZ, said: "Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin' with a badass policeman."