Police Teargas Crowds Protesting Killing of Missouri Teenager

Local Editor

Violence has broken out again as authorities dressed in riot gear in a St. Louis, Missouri suburb - where an unarmed black teen was fatally shot by police over the weekend - have used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse a large crowd.

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson stated that a group gathered throughout the day on Monday at a burned-out convenience store, then turned rowdy at nightfall.

Along with tear gas, observers tweeted that police fired rubber bullets into the crowd.

Police were telling people to go home, but had blocked streets off in the area. Jackson said police closed the area where most of the looting and vandalism occurred during the previous night, out of concern that cars passing by might hit demonstrators in the street.

The St. Louis suburb has been marred by unrest for three days, moving from protests and vigils during the day to rioting and looting at night. The tumult is over the death of Michael Brown, a black teenager who was killed on Saturday following an altercation with a Ferguson police officer.

Brown had his hands raised when the police officer approached with his weapon drawn and fired repeatedly, according to two individuals who said they witnessed the shooting that triggered two nights of violence in suburban St. Louis.
The 18-year-old was to begin his first day of college on Monday.

"We witnessed tear gas being fired at just a couple dozen people...who live in this neighborhood. The police had issued several warnings that they would fire tear gas and they in fact proceeded to do this," one reported.

"We do not expect these tensions to die down because the local we've spoken to most certainly intend to continue coming out to protest."
Although authorities are still investigating the incident, St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar said a struggle between Brown and a police officer somehow ensued inside a police cruiser. It was unclear whether Brown or the man he was with was involved in the altercation.
"It is our understanding at this point in the investigation, that within the police car, there was a struggle over the officer's weapon," Belmar told a news conference on Sunday.

Dozens of people gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department on Monday, calling for authorities to identify the officer involved and charge him with murder, St. Louis Public Radio reported.
A total of 32 people were arrested during the violence on Sunday night, The New York Times reported, as questions of race and simmering tensions between Ferguson's residents and police boiled over into rioting. Residents have complained of too many incidences where the police use racial profiling when confronting individuals on the street.

Patrice McHaskell, who lives near the looted area, said that officers frequently stop young black men for trivial things like walking in the middle of the street, as witnesses said Brown was doing.
Brown's parents told reporters that their son was non-violent and would have objected to the looting.

The family's lawyer asked witnesses to step forward with testimony and videotape.

"If any of you have information, please give it to us," Brown's father, Michael Brown, said. "We don't want no violence."
"Because Michael wouldn't want no violence," Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said through tears.
Brown's family has hired Benjamin Crump, the lawyer who represented the family of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a mixed-race Hispanic who served as a community watch volunteer in 2012.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team