Police try to control a crowd on the lot of a gas station following a shooting Tuesday... Read More
St. Louis County police say the man was shot after raising a 9-millimeter handgun at an officer from the Berkeley, Missouri, force. A surveillance video from a gas station where the incident occurred and released by police shows the suspect pointing the weapon at the officer, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters today.
The man wasn’t named by police but was identified as Antonio Martin by his mother, Toni Martin, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on its website.
As many as 300 protesters gathered around the gas station following a call for demonstrators over social media by activists who led nightly events in Ferguson after black 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death by a white police officer on Aug. 9. The shooting sparked unrest over law-enforcement tactics that’s spread across the U.S.
“A lot like August,” tweeted Johnetta Elzie, a 25-year-old activist from St. Louis who organized protests in Ferguson.
Riot Gear
Police, some assembled in riot gear, arrested four protesters and charged them with assaulting law-enforcement officers, Belmar said. Two officers were injured and windows were smashed in a police car and at a nearby gas station, he said.
Police photograph a gun on the ground Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014, following a shooting... Read More
Thousands have rallied in New York, Washington and other cities since the Dec. 3 decision in the Staten Island case of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six whose death while being held in a police chokehold was recorded on video.
Last night, demonstrators marched on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue against heavy-handed police tactics, defying a request by Mayor Bill de Blasio to temporarily halt protests after two officers were shot execution-style on Dec. 20 in Brooklyn by a man authorities say had alluded to the Brown and Garner cases on social media and attended a New York protest.
The man killed in last night’s incident was one of two people approached during a routine business check at the gas station, St. Louis County police said in a statement.
Raised Arm
The video shows two men walking outside a gas station before they’re approached by a police officer. It ends with an image of a man in dark clothing raising his arm in the direction of the officer. It doesn’t show the shooting.“Bad choices were made,” by the 18-year-old, Belmar said. “This individual could’ve complied with the officer. He could’ve ran away. He could’ve dropped the gun.”
The officer, a 34-year-old white man who wasn’t named, fired several shots after fearing for his life, Belmar said. The second man fled and the case remains under investigation. The officer, a six-year veteran of the Berkeley force, didn’t wear the body camera he’d been issued, Belmar said.
The 18-year-old was known to local police officers and had been arrested several times, he said.
“The wound was reopened tonight,” DeRay McKesson, another protest organizer, said on Twitter.
