Wednesday night protesters were very angry in the the neighborhood of St. Louis after hearing that an off duty Cop Killed another black African teen, According to Police the kid fired 3 shots at him and then the Officer returned 17 shots.
Teyonna Myers, 23, told the newspaper that Myers was her cousin. “He was unarmed,” she said. “He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It’s like Michael Brown all over again.”
Via usatoday
Police cordoned off a major street in the largely African-American area as the demonstrators denounced police and smashed windows on several police cars.
The police chief said the shooting in Shaw unfolded after a 32-year-old officer, working off-duty for a private security firm, confronted three black teens who fled as he drove by.
Reuters reported that the officer, who was wearing his city police uniform, is white, but he has not been identified.
After a chase on foot, one of the teens approached the officer “in an aggressive manner,” Dotson said, and refused to stop or surrender.
The two got into a “physical alteration” that pulled off the suspect’s gray-hooded sweater. As the teenager ran away, grabbing at his waist, Dotson said, the officer felt that the teenager was carry a firearm.
Dotson said, however, that the unidentified officer, a six-year veteran of the St. Louis police force, did not open fire because “he wanted to be certain it was a gun.”
At one point, he said, the suspect turned and “pointed the gun at the officer and fired at least three rounds at the officer.” He said the suspect tried to continue firing, but his gun jammed.
The officer responded by firing at least 17 rounds at the suspect, killing him. The officer was not injured.
Dotson said a 9mm Ruger handgun, allegedly belonging to the suspect, was recovered at the scene and a forensics search located three projectiles that had been fired at the officer.
“An investigation will decide if the officer’s behavior was appropriate,” the police chief told reporters.
Dotson did not identify the victim but said he “was no stranger to law enforcement.”
St. Louis Alderman Antonio French of the 21st Ward posted on Twitter that the victim’s mother came to the scene of the shooting and fainted. “An ambulance came to attend to her,” French tweeted. “There is nothing like a mother’s pain at the loss of a child.”
Relatives of the victim, who identified him as Vonderrit Myers Jr., claimed that he had been unarmed
On Twitter, users began using the hashtag #16shots and #shawshooting to express their anger at the second fatal police shooting in the area in two months.
In Ferguson, police officer Darren Wilson has not been charged in the shooting of Michael Brown. A grand jury is currently investigating the incident.