Police came under “heavy gunfire” and 31 people were arrested, authorities said yesterday, during racially charged protests in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman 10 days ago.
“Not a single bullet was fired by officers despite coming under heavy attack [on Monday night],” State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson told a news conference.
“Our officers came under heavy gunfire,” in one area, he said, and riot police had confiscated two guns from protesters and what looked like a Molotov cocktail.
Photo: Reuters
Demonstrations, mostly peaceful but with spasms of violence by smaller groups, have flared since Michael Brown, 18, was shot dead during an incident with a policeman in a patrol car while walking down a residential street in Ferguson on Aug. 9.
An overnight curfew has been imposed and the National Guard, the US state militia, has been deployed in the St Louis suburb of 21,000 people to stop looting and burning that have punctuated the protests and stirred questions about US race relations.
Missouri state police with an African American in charge, Johnson, have taken over security efforts from mostly white local police, widely accused of using excessive force against blacks, and US President Barack Obama and civil rights leaders have appealed for calm while a federal investigation proceeds.
Brown was shot by policeman Darren Wilson, 28, who is now on paid leave, in hiding and under criminal investigation.
The clashes between riot police and protesters on Monday night occurred after hours of demonstrations that were mostly peaceful, Reuters witnesses said.
Police had closed a roadway to traffic to provide a path for marches, but said a smaller group within the larger crowd hurled bottles, rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers standing near armored vehicles. Police responded by firing gas-filled canisters and a noise cannon to try to disperse the throng.
Johnson, commanding state police now overseeing efforts to reinstate order, told CNN that two people were shot within the crowd, but not by police, and were taken to hospital.
Some demonstrators, including a church minister using a blow horn, urged crowds to calm down.
Local broadcast media said on Twitter that one person was shot in the hand and taken to an area hospital and that another man rushed to a police line holding his side saying he had been shot. Reuters could not confirm the reports.
“This has to stop. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. We have to find a way to stop this,” Johnson said.
There have been peaceful protests over Brown’s killing elsewhere in the US, including in St Louis, New York, Seattle and Oakland. Johnson said some of the arrested protesters had come from California and New York.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency in Ferguson on Saturday and a curfew from midnight to 5am. He also mobilized the National Guard to back up state police.
Obama said he told the governor the use of the National Guard should be limited and called for conciliation in communities hit by the unrest. US Attorney General Eric Holder is to visit Ferguson today, he said.
“While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving in to that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos,” Obama told a news conference. “It undermines, rather than advancing, justice.”
Holder said more than 40 FBI agents were canvassing Ferguson neighborhoods in their investigation and an additional medical examination was being performed on Brown. Results of autopsies done by federal and St Louis County authorities were pending.
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