Protests follow ex-officer’s acquittal
POLICE SHOOTING
ST. LOUIS — A white former police officer was acquitted Friday in the 2011 death of a black man who was fatally shot following a highspeed chase, and hundreds of demonstrators streamed into the streets of downtown St. Louis to protest the verdict that had stirred fears of civil unrest for weeks.
Ahead of the acquittal, activists had threatened civil disobedience if Jason Stockley were not convicted, including possible efforts to shut down highways. Barricades went up last month around police headquarters, the courthouse where the trial was held and other potential protest sites. Protesters were marching within hours of the decision.
By Friday evening, 13 arrests had been made and four officers hurt. One officer’s hand was injured and another was pinned by a bike. A third was hit by a bike, and a fourth struck by a water bottle. None was hospitalized, St. Louis interim police Chief Lawrence O’Toole said.
The case played out not far from the suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, which was the scene of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old who was killed by a white police officer in 2014. That officer was never charged and eventually resigned.
Stockley, who was charged with first-degree murder, insisted he saw Anthony Lamar Smith holding a gun and felt he was in imminent danger. Prosecutors said the officer planted a gun in Smith’s car after the shooting. The officer asked the case to be decided by a judge instead of a jury.