Two police officers shot in Ferguson

Two police officers shot in Ferguson

Two police officers in the flashpoint US town of Ferguson were shot early

Thursday during a new protest over the treatment of blacks by the mainly white
police force, an officer said.
One officer was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder as a protest rally
outside the police station in the Missouri town was dispersing, St. Louis County
police chief Jon Belmar told reporters. He said the officers were conscious but
that their injuries were serious.
Ferguson in recent months has been one of the hot spots for the long-standing
US problem of harsh treatment of young black men by mainly white police.
Earlier in the day, the Ferguson police chief resigned over a scathing US Justice
Department report into the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael
Brown by one of his officers back in August.
Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson, igniting angry
protests and a national debate about race and law enforcement in America.
Wilson was not charged in that death.
Belmar said the protest that formed Wednesday night was dispersing when at
least three shots were fired.
“The police officers were standing there and they were shot. Just because they
were police officers,” Belmar told reporters at the scene of the incident, adding
that the officers were alive and conscious.
Witness Markus Roehrer told CNN that the atmosphere at the protest was tense
and that when he first heard the gunfire he thought it might be firecrackers.
“When I saw the cops go down, I said this is far worse,” he told CNN.
CNN broadcast blurry amateur video in which gunshots are heard, protesters run
away in panic. A moaning voice is heard, then police are seen crouching down
with weapons drawn.
Belmar said it was not really clear where the shooting came from.
But Roehrer said the sound came from some distance behind the small group of
protesters, which he estimated at about 40 when the gunfire rang out.
“To put this on the protesters would be totally unfair,” he told CNN.