The state of emergency declared earlier this week in St. Louis County continued on Wednesday, but amid concerns of renewed unrest on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., police said that Tuesday night’s protests came and went without any arrests.
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The crowd marched, chanted and at times confronted police.
Police on Tuesday released a video of Sunday’s shooting that they said showed the teen, Tyrone Harris, drawing a pistol from his trousers.
Brown, who was black, was fatally shot by a white police officer following a confrontation on a Ferguson street on August 9, 2014.
St Louis County Police said: “The video shows Harris grabbing a handgun out of his waistband once shots are fired during the protest in the West Florissant corridor”. And each time protesters left the sidewalk for the street, police converged. In addition to one drive-by-shooting, a number of demonstrators had thrown rocks and iced bottles of water at police.
Ferguson Police released a video showing a man with what appears to be a gun moments before he was shot by police and critically wounded, disputing claims from his family he was unarmed.
“We already know what needs to be happening is not happening”, Larry Miller, 58, organizer of the protest group Ferguson Freedom Fighters, told the Associated Press late Tuesday.
Harris’s father has said his son did not have a gun.
“After reviewing the events of the past two evenings, under the state of emergency, I am pleased to report our law enforcement officers have established order while preventing further acts of violence“, said Steve Stenger, county executive, in a statement.
The nighttime protest in Ferguson involved several hundred people, majority well-behaved.
Ferguson, Missouri remains under a state of emergency at present.
Police say they pursued Harris and he fired at least once at the officer’s vehicle near West Florissant.
Brown’s death and similar police killings that followed in Baltimore; North Charleston, South Carolina; Cincinnati; and Arlington, Texas, sparked a year of protests and debate across the United States about race, justice and law enforcement’s use of force. When they didn’t comply, officers advanced and took several people into custody.
The organization says its members are all former military, police or first responders who pledge to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, according to the group’s website.
While it is unclear as to how long Oath Keepers will remain in Ferguson, the presence of additional firepower and polarized opinions has understandably raised tensions on all sides of the situation.
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[Around St. Louis, bloodshed rises in year since Michael Brown was killed].
