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Ferguson anniversary rally: man critically injured in police shooting | Ferguson anniversary rally: man critically injured in police shooting |
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A young black man is in a critical and unstable condition after being shot by police in Ferguson on the edges of a demonstration marking the first anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, which was once again dispersed by police firing teargas. | |
Related: 'Things will never be the same': the oral history of a new civil rights movement | Related: 'Things will never be the same': the oral history of a new civil rights movement |
The man was shot by four plainclothes detectives after allegedly firing on their unmarked vehicle as he walked from a gunfight between several people late on Sunday night, St Louis County’s police chief said at a 2.30am (08.30am BST) press conference on Monday. | |
“We can’t afford to have this kind of violence,” said Jon Belmar, whose department has led the controversial police response to protests over Brown’s death. “There is a small group of people who are intent on making sure we don’t have peace.” | |
The county police chief stressed that the approximately six people involved in the exchange of fire that led to the shooting by police should not be associated with the demonstrations. “They weren’t protesters; they were criminals,” he said. | |
In the hours after the shooting, dozens of protesters were swept from a main street in the city by police who fired a barrage of gas and smoke grenades. Officers wearing body armour were backed by the military-style armoured vehicles seen after Brown’s death last August. | |
Belmar said the unidentified man shot was believed to be about 20. Reporters for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, however, named the victim as Tyrone Harris, an 18-year-old graduate of Normandy high school, which Brown also attended. His father told the newspaper the pair had been close. | |
The police chief said the plainclothes detectives had been tracking Harris because they believed him to be armed. A young woman described by friends as the girlfriend of the injured man sat sobbing hysterically beside a row of shops opposite where he was shot. A large group of police in riot gear promptly marched towards the woman and her friends, driving them and protesters away from the scene as clergy peacekeepers pleaded with them to stand back from her. | |
The bursts of gunfire rang out at about 11.15pm near a block north of where protesters were squaring off with officers clad in riot gear for the first time during the largely peaceful anniversary weekend. Police, reporters and protesters gathered behind vehicles while others scattered. Dozens of shell casings were recovered by police. | |
The young man was seen by several reporters lying wounded and handcuffed on the ground beside officers. He was recorded on video by Tony Rice, a Ferguson-based protester and activist, who said he was arrested seconds after filming the scene for refusing to move back. A legal observer said Rice was released by police shortly after. | |
pic.twitter.com/S7ZfGpVMgL | pic.twitter.com/S7ZfGpVMgL |
DeRay McKesson, a prominent protest leader, said he and several others ran north for cover after the shots were fired. “We heard bullets buzzing through the air,” he said. As reporters and photographers attempted to peer around vehicles, several officers ordered them to get down. “It’s not worth it,” one told the Guardian and journalists for other outlets. | |
A few lootings had been reported through the night and windows to some store fronts were smashed. Paul Hampel, a reporter for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, was assaulted and robbed by looters minutes after reporting on their actions on Twitter. | |
The armoured vehicles rolled back on to West Florissant Avenue minutes after the shooting. Officers from St Louis County, who had been policing the protest, were joined by troopers from the Missouri state highway patrol in riot helmets. | |
An hour after the shooting, a few dozen protesters and reporters were penned in by police on the car park at the front of Ferguson Market & Liquor, the convenience store from which Brown was accused of stealing cigarillos minutes before he was shot. | |
Two police vehicles were shot at in the confrontation, according to police. St Louis County vehicles do not carry the dashboard cameras used by some other agencies. Belmar said the officers were not wearing body cameras because they were plainclothes detectives. | |
Related: Ferguson marks Michael Brown anniversary with silence and protest | |
Police began firing smoke and gas shortly before 2am as some protesters threw stones and bottles as dozens gathered at the intersection of West Florissant and Canfield Drive, the street where Brown was fatally shot last 9 August by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. | |
“Failure to disperse may result in your detention, arrest, and/or exposure to chemical or less-lethal munitions,” a police officer said over a loudspeaker. “Police intend to use chemical munitions.” While some were swept down the main street others were shot by a bombardment despite retreating down the side street as requested by police. | |
Earlier in the day hundreds of people gathered at the site of Brown’s shooting for a memorial service and marched in silence to a nearby church. Wilson was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in November by a state grand jury and the US Department of Justice declined to prosecute him for civil rights violations. Brown’s family is suing Wilson and the city, alleging they caused the wrongful death of their son. | |