Man badly hurt as Ferguson rally turns violent

FERGUSON: A man was gravely wounded in a gun battle with police as street protests turned violent in Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday night, capping a day of peaceful rallies to mark the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white officer one year ago.

Several volleys of gunshots rang out as police in riot gear tried to disperse demonstrators blocking traffic and smashing storefront windows along a street that was a flashpoint of last year’s unrest in the St Louis suburb after Michael Brown, 18, was slain.

Police later said Sunday night’s gunfire began with two groups of agitators apparently shooting at each other, before one gunman darted across a parking lot and was confronted by four officers who pulled up in an unmarked vehicle.

The suspect then opened fire on the police vehicle and was badly wounded in the ensuing foot chase and a further exchange of gunshots with the four detectives.

St Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the unidentified man, believed to be in his mid-twenties, was hospitalised in a critical and unstable condition.

Speaking to reporters at a pre-dawn news conference yesterday, Belmar estimated that more than 40 rounds had been unleashed in what he called “a remarkable amount of gunfire”.

“These were criminals, they weren’t protesters,” he said of the shooters. “There is a small group of people out there that are intent on making sure that we don’t have peace that prevails.”

At least three officers were injured in the mêlée, one struck in the face with a brick hurled from the crowd and two others pepper-sprayed by protesters, Belmar said.

A local journalist was also robbed and assaulted in a nearby parking lot amid the turmoil, during which police made five arrests.

Separately, two teenage males were shot early yesterday in a drive-by attack near a sidewalk shrine erected in Brown’s memory beside the spot he was killed, but their wounds were not life-threatening, police said.

Anniversary commemorations had begun hours earlier with a peaceful march through the St Louis suburb. – Reuters