Some shouted expletives at investigators and chanted “Black Lives Matter” – the phrase used a year ago after the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in the nearby town of Ferguson.
Advertisement
Earlier in the day, officers fatally shot 18-year-old Maurice Ball-Bey as he and another man fled from a home police were attempting to search. A recent graduate of McCluer South-Berkeley High School, Ball-Bey was working part-time at FedEx and died in his company uniform, said attorney Jerryl Christmas. Police also said they confiscated crack-cocaine and four guns, three identified as stolen, at a residence.
Another man and a woman who were also inside the home were arrested, Dotson said.
Reuters video showed dozens of protesters blocking a nearby intersection shortly after the shooting, monitored by police.
“Another youth down by the hands of police”, area resident Dex Dockett remarked. “What might have been accomplished totally different to de-escalate relatively than escalate?”
In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Kayla Reed, a frequent protester and member of the Organization for Black Struggle, said police were as aggressive as she’s seen them in a long time. “You’ve obtained to have the proper of cops to interact in a majority of these neighbourhoods”.
“The look that I saw on the two officers yesterday after they were involved (in the shooting of Mansur Ball-Bey) … is they were concerned, not for themselves, but for what was going to happen in this community”, Dotson said.
“They provoked the state of affairs”, Worth, 33, stated.
“It’s kind of ironic that we’re in that neighborhood where police services are most needed, and people are telling us not to do our jobs”.
Dotson described Wednesday’s protests as first being peaceful, then becoming unresponsive to police.
He said police are now receiving reports of businesses being looted and fires being set in what he referred to as “acts of violence directed at not only to police officers but the neighborhood”. The police chief blamed those crimes on people seeking “notoriety”, NBC News reports. The veteran was unhurt, and his auto was found Tuesday blocks from where it was taken.
Protests have turn out to be a well-known scene throughout the St. Louis area since Brown, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on August. 9, 2014.
Advertisement
Dotson did not provide details about the crimes that led to the warrant, but the Associated Press noted that he mentioned a fatal shooting on Monday that occurred on the same street as the house, as well as another shooting that occurred at a neighborhood market.
