Race a factor in shooting of black cop, lawyer says

A “friendly fire” incident in which an offduty St. Louis police officer was shot while coming to the aid of fellow officers has taken on racial overtones after an incendiary claim by the injured officer’s attorney: The officer was viewed as a threat because he was black.

The St. Louis Police Department has not identified any of the officers involved in Wednesday night’s incident. The officer who shot the off-duty police officer is white. All seven officers involved are on administrative leave as the department sorts out what happened.

What is known is that officers with an anticrime task force were tracking a car that was stolen after its license plate had been detected by an automatic reader Wednesday night, said acting Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole.

During the chase, the armed men inside the car opened fire.

Officers fired back, hitting one of the suspects in the ankle. The vehicle ultimately crashed in a neighborhood on the north side of the city and the suspects jumped out and ran, police said. The man shot in the ankle was quickly arrested, along with a teenager who was caught after a brief chase. A third suspect — who police believed was armed — got away and remained at large Sunday.

An off-duty officer who lives nearby heard the commotion, grabbed his service pistol and headed to the scene to assist his fellow officers. He arrived as the other officers were carrying out the arrest.

The other officers ordered the off-duty officer to the ground, then recognized him as a fellow police officer and told him to stand up and walk toward them.

As he approached, another officer arrived and shot the off-duty officer in the arm, “apparently not recognizing” him, police said.

The black officer, who is 38 years old and an 11-year veteran of the force, was treated at the hospital and released. The shooter, a 36-yearold officer who has been on the force for eight years, told investigators he had feared for his safety.

But Rufus Tate Jr., the black officer’s attorney, took issue with that claim, saying his client complied with the other officers’ commands and was never a threat.

“In the police report, you have so far, there is no description of threat he received,” he told St. Louis Fox-affiliate KTVI. “So we have a real problem with that. But this has been a national discussion for the past two years. There is this perception that a black man is automatically feared.”

The St. Louis area was once the epicenter of the nation’s debate about whether police are too quick to use deadly force against minorities.

Michael Brown, 18, was unarmed on Aug. 9, 2014, when he was fatally shot by officer Darren Wilson during a confrontation in Ferguson, about 20 minutes from St. Louis. Months of protests followed Brown’s shooting. Ultimately, a Department of Justice investigation found bias in the criminal justice system in Ferguson, although Wilson was never criminally charged. Wilson resigned in November 2014.

So far this year, 461 people have been shot and killed by police officers, according to a Washington Post database. Nearly a quarter of them were black.