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Police: Suspect arrested in shooting of two officers in Ferguson Police: Suspect arrested in shooting of two officers in Ferguson
(about 1 hour later)
St. Louis County police have arrested a suspect and recovered a weapon in connection with the shooting of two police officers standing guard during a peaceful protest in Ferguson, Mo., early Thursday, according to a news release. FERGUSON, Mo. — Police have arrested a suspect and recovered a gun in connection with the shooting of two officers early Thursday as they stood guard during a peaceful protest outside police headquarters here.
Officials in Missouri announced a news conference at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time to discuss “an arrest in connection with the shooting at the Ferguson Police Department Thursday morning that left two police officers wounded.” In a news conference Sunday, officials identified the man as Jeffrey Williams, 20. Officials said that Williams, who is African American, lives in the St. Louis area and that he had attended the demonstration earlier in the evening and other demonstrations in Ferguson in the past.
Law enforcement sources told The Washington Post that a local man was arrested in the late morning on Sunday and that the weapon believed to have been used in the shooting has been recovered. As the demonstration was ending, Williams allegedly fired four shots from atop a hill near the police station, striking the two officers. Robert McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, said that Williams had admitted firing the shots but had told officers that he was aiming at someone else and struck the police by accident.
The shooting came just hours after the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, which sparked a new round of protest outside of the police department. Demonstrations have gone on for more than seven months since the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old who was killed by a white police officer. “He may have had a dispute with some other individuals. . . . I’m not sure we completely buy that part of it,” McCulloch said. “We’re not sure there was a dispute.” McCulloch said that there were demonstrators located between the officers and the gunman at the time the shots were fired but that investigators had not located anyone who had been in a dispute with Williams earlier in the evening.
Local and federal probes into the shooting concluded that Officer Darren Wilson did not commit a crime when he shot and killed Brown, but the shooting and the protests it sparked have spurred new scrutiny of racially discriminatory practices by the Ferguson Police Department. McCulloch said that Williams may have fired at least some of the shots from inside a car. He said that investigators had recovered a .40-caliber handgun in Williams’s possession that matched shell casings found at the scene.
At the time of the shooting, McCulloch said, Williams already had a warrant out for his arrest; he was on probation for receiving stolen property and had not checked in with his probation officer in seven months
The arrest ends a four-day manhunt, which began with gunfire in the dark. Two bullets struck officers standing in a line, more than 100 yards away.
One officer, a 32-year-old man on the Webster Groves, Mo., force, was left with a bullet lodged behind his ear. The other wounded officer, a 41-year-old man from the St. Louis County police force, was hit in the shoulder, and the bullet exited through his back. Both have been released from the hospital.
That shooting brought a resurgence of tensions in this battered St. Louis suburb, which was the scene of huge protests — and a large militarized police response — after a white Ferguson officer killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown last summer.
[In Ferguson, hope and despair grapple for dominance]
A grand jury later declined to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, and a Justice Department investigation later found the shooting was justified. Wilson has resigned from the department.
In recent weeks, small measures of change had begun to appear in Ferguson. A scathing Justice Department report found that Ferguson police viewed law enforcement largely as a means to raise city revenue and that they disproportionately targeted African Americans.
Since then, Ferguson’s city manager, top municipal court judge and police chief have all said they will step aside.
But many protesters have said that is not enough, and they have pressed for further changes, including the resignation of Ferguson Mayor James W. Knowles III. It was that kind of demand that spurred the protest that preceded the shooting, in which dozens of demonstrators faced down police in riot gear.
The shooting happened as a protest was appearing to break up, and the shots came from a distance away from the crowd of remaining protesters.
With the crime still unsolved, the shooting left both sides of Ferguson’s divide more mistrustful of the other.
Among police, union officials had declared that the shootings were “what the protesters want,” and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar declared that the shooter had been “embedded” in the crowd of demonstrators — a claim he would walk back the following day.
And among demonstrators, some had called the shootings “suspicious,” voicing concerns that the shots had been fired by somebody seeking to taint their cause with violence.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. excoriated the shooter on the day after the officers were wounded, saying that the shots had been fired by “a damn punk.”
“Whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue,” President Obama said in an interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “They’re criminals. They need to be arrested.”
Fahrenthold reported from Washington.