A vehicle was also reportedly set on fire, and a SWAT team was eventually summoned.
Advertisement
Dotson said police would release video showing that officers gave multiple orders to clear the street and warnings that the tear gas would be used.
“This is an unlawful assembly”, police warned. “There were two officers in the alley”.
It was not, according to reports, entirely peaceful. “We need support in the community”.
In the area there were reports of burglaries and at least one auto was burned, he said.
“Peace was restored after a total of nine arrests”, he said.
A string of such incidents has led to wide-spread outcry as well as police and racial equality initiatives going all the way up to the White House.
Mr Dotson said Ball-Bey’s gun was one of three stolen firearms recovered from the scene and that officers had recovered crack cocaine. He remained at large.
Police are looking for the second suspect, who they stated is believed to be in his mid- to late teenagers.
The protests and clashes with police extended through the night.
Police in St. Louis continue their investigation into the deadly shooting of a teenager by officers serving a search a warrant. One is 33, the other 29, and both have been on the force for about seven years.
Protests broke out Ball-Bey’s death and the police responded with teargas. Witnesses told a reporter they heard gunshots and saw police with guns drawn.
Protests have become a familiar scene across the St. Louis region since Brown, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014.
The shooting happened after officers conducted a search at a house in a nearby neighborhood.
Earlier in the evening, police moved in to clear the neighborhood of protesters, firing canisters of smoke.
The man who died was identified as 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey, USA Today reported.
“Our goal was to keep people safe”, Dotson said.
Advertisement
The area involved is near where there have been several recent shootings and where a 93-year-old veteran who served with the Tuskegee Airmen was robbed and carjacked earlier this week. Last month, a man was charged with felony child endangerment after his 3-year-old nephew accidentally shot himself in the head after finding a loaded gun under a pillow in a bedroom. The boy survived. Dotson said the individuals walking up Kingshighway not only blocked traffic but also endangered lives. “Certainly the good people in this neighborhood should not be plagued by the violence“. Some chanted “Black Lives Matter”, the call of a movement that came to national prominence about a year ago after the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson.
