Police still seeking suspect in shooting of Ferguson police officer
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Version 0 of 1. Police in Missouri continue to search for suspects in two weekend incidents involving people shooting at officers, authorities said Monday. There is no indication that the two shootings were related, Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department, said in an e-mail Monday morning. A Ferguson police officer was shot in the left arm during what officials described as a routine stop on Saturday night. Schellman said the officer saw a man in the back of the Ferguson Community Center. As the officer got out of his car, the man ran away, so the officer began to chase him. The man turned and fire shots at the officer, hitting him once in the arm, Schellman said. The officer also fired at the suspect, but police do not think he hit the man. Still, with the situation in Ferguson remaining incredibly tense in the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting, there were rumors Saturday night that a suspect had been shot and an officer killed. Police announced relatively soon after the incident that this was not what had happened. The officer involved had a body camera on him that was not turned on at the time of the shooting, Schellman confirmed. A few hours later, an off-duty officer from the city of St. Louis was fired at while driving his personal vehicle on Interstate 70, police said. An unknown number of people in a car passing the officer’s car fired multiple times, hitting the vehicle but not the officer. The officer suffered minor injuries from the glass that broke, Schellman said. The officer was wearing his uniform pants but not his uniform shirt, Schellman said. It is still unclear whether the shooting was a random act or whether the officer was targeted. The officers involved in the two episodes have been treated and released from the hospital, Schellman said. Still, even as detectives with the county police continue to investigate, there are no suspects, Schellman said. The incidents occurred came at a time of renewed tension in Ferguson. This began earlier in the week, with the destruction of a memorial for Brown, and continued with the release of a videotaped apology by Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson. Since Brown’s death on Aug. 9 at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson sparked waves of protests, often met by heavily armed police officers, police have said that officers have faced threats or gunfire. On Tuesday night, several hours after the memorial was destroyed, people fired shots at officers, said Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He also said that protesters threw rocks at police officers, injuring two of them, and threatened other officers. Officers working in Ferguson have been criticized for wearing “I am Darren Wilson” bracelets and obscuring their nameplates. In a letter to Jackson that was released publicly last week, the Justice Department confirmed that it had asked police working in the city not to wear the bracelets or cover their nameplates. |