Two police officers shot in Ferguson in ‘ambush’ following protests
Two police officers shot in Ferguson in ‘ambush’ following protests
(about 4 hours later)
FERGUSON, Mo. — Two police officers were shot and seriously injured early Thursday near the Ferguson, Mo., police headquarters, after a tense evening in which protesters and police — and, at times, protesters and other protesters — had faced off outside the building.
FERGUSON, Mo. — Police spent Thursday searching for the gunman who opened fire during a late-night protest against police misconduct here — a shooting that wounded two officers and brought fear and mistrust back to the streets of this battered St. Louis suburb.
Police say both of the wounded officers were still in serious condition, but their injuries did not appear life-threatening. One, a 41 year-old officer on the St. Louis County police force, was struck in the shoulder. The other, a 32-year-old on the police force of Webster Groves, Mo., was struck in the cheek. The bullet wound up lodged near his eye.
At midday Thursday, heavily armed police descended on a house here as part of the investigation into the shooting. They brought several people in for questioning, according to Sgt. Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St. Louis County police.
“Fortunately, with both officers, we don’t have any remarkable long-term injuries,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in a news conference Monday. “We’re lucky.”
But none of those people were arrested, and by Thursday evening police said they had no one in custody in the case.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., whose Justice Department had excoriated the Ferguson police for disproportionately targeting black residents, denounced the shootings as “the heinous and cowardly attacks.”
The two wounded officers remained in serious condition, but police said their wounds were not life-threatening. One, a 41-year-old officer on the St. Louis County police force, was struck in the shoulder. The other, a 32-year-old on the police force of Webster Groves, Mo., was struck in the cheek; the bullet lodged near his ear.
“What happened last night was a pure ambush,” Holder said Thursday afternoon. “This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson. This was a damn punk, a punk, who was trying to sow discord.”
The officers were shot at the end of a day that, hours earlier, had appeared to herald progress in Ferguson. Police Chief Thomas Jackson, whose force had been castigated by Justice Department investigators for unfairly targeting black residents, had agreed to step down. His departure had been a key demand of the protest movement that sprang up last summer, after a white Ferguson officer shot and killed an unarmed black 18-year-old, Michael Brown.
At mid-day Thursday, the county police descended on a house in the area as part of the investigation into the shooting, and have brought several people in for questioning, according to Sgt. Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the department.
But after midnight, somebody opened fire from a hilltop, shooting out of the darkness over a small crowd of demonstrators and into a line of officers outside the Ferguson Police Department. Then the shooter disappeared.
But he said no arrests have been made so far.
“What happened last night was a pure ambush,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday afternoon in Washington as his department offered local officials its full range of investigative resources. “This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson. This was a damn punk, a punk, who was trying to sow discord.”
The shots were fired after midnight, after a night of demonstrations that followed the news that Ferguson’s police chief, Thomas Jackson, would step down next week. Jackson was in charge last summer when a white Ferguson officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, setting off months of protests.
If that was the goal, it worked.
On Thursday, the St. Louis County Police Department announced that it and the Missouri State Highway Patrol would take over security for the protests in Ferguson that evening. The city’s police force has been responsible for providing security since a state of emergency declared by Gov. Jay Nixon (R) expired in December. The county police said that it would not take over other policing in Ferguson and that their new role would focus on security around the protests.
On Thursday, the shooting — along with the tense protests that preceded it — appeared to have deepened distrust between police and protesters here, after months of gradually diminishing tensions.
[WATCH: Video shows moment of Ferguson shooting]
Kevin Ahlbrand, president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, said that the protests late Wednesday were especially confrontational, with a vocal minority of demonstrators shouting abuse and racial epithets at officers.
The Ferguson police building had been the scene of protests since November, when a grand jury declined to indict the officer, Darren Wilson.
“I don’t understand it,” said Ahlbrand, who is a sergeant with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. “They got what they have been asking for — for the chief to resign. Why are they angrier now?”
But the protests that began Wednesday evening were different, witnesses said: the crowd was bigger, swelled by some out-of-town protesters who’d come after the news of Jackson’s departure. The police seemed more aggressive, and there was infighting between protesters.
Protest leaders condemned the shooting and worried that it could trigger a more aggressive police crackdown. “Whoever did this last night put us all in danger,” the Rev. Traci Blackmon, a pastor in Ferguson, said in a phone call with reporters.
Blackmon also voiced a theory — shared by many in the Ferguson demonstrations Thursday — that the shooter may have been someone trying to undermine the protest movement by tainting it with violence.
“I don’t mean that I have anybody, any person or any group, in mind. But it’s just very difficult not to be suspicious,” Blackmon said. She continued: “I’m suspicious that it is a random act that happened to happen last night. And [that] it wasn’t intended to derail us from the path that we’re on right now.”
On Thursday, President Obama tried to soothe tensions via Twitter: “Violence against police is unacceptable. Our prayers are with the officers in MO. Path to justice is one all of us must travel together.” The message was signed “-bo,” which the White House says is an indication it was written by Obama himself.
Demonstrators said they would return to the police headquarters Thursday evening for a candlelight vigil. St. Louis County police said their officers, along with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, would take charge of security. Ferguson’s city police force had been in command of security at the building since a state of emergency declared by Gov. Jay Nixon (R) expired in December.
The only obvious sign of the hunt for the gunman was the raid on a one-story brick house about a quarter-mile from the shooting scene. A neighbor across the street said that he saw a SWAT team take several people out of the house.
The owner of the home, Iris Turner, said that her granddaughter was one of three people taken into custody. Turner said the girl had attended the protests and came home when she heard gunfire.
“She wasn’t involved in any of this. None of this,” Turner said as camera crews set up outside of her home. All three were later released without charges.
The police headquarters had been the scene of regular demonstrations in recent months. But on Wednesday evening, the group that gathered in the parking lot was bigger, and the mood was unusually tense.
“It was a bad atmosphere, you could feel it in the air,” said Rasheen Aldridge, a key protest organizer.
“It was a bad atmosphere, you could feel it in the air,” said Rasheen Aldridge, a key protest organizer.
At one point, one protester actually struck another over a long-standing fight over whether one of them was deriving financial benefit from the events of Ferguson. Another, larger scuffle broke out a short time later.
As the evening wore on, police made arrests and advanced with riot shields to push the crowd back. There were also scuffles among the protesters — at one point, one demonstrator struck another, fighting over an accusation that one of them was exploiting the events in Ferguson for financial benefit. Another, larger disturbance broke out a short time later.
Aldridge said he and others tried to refocus the crowd’s attention on the police department, with chants that would remind them of their common cause. Police began to make arrests, and at one point a line of officers advanced with riot shields, to push protesters away from the headquarters building, and into a parking lot across the street.
As the night deepened, many protesters departed, leaving about 40 stragglers. Among them was Johnetta Elzie, who had stuck around in hopes of securing the release of three people who had been arrested earlier that evening.
Officers on the scene also thought that the crowd was “far more confrontational” than it has been over the past several months, according Kevin Ahlbrand, president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police.
Then came the shots. Police said they were fired from a nearby hilltop, where a street runs toward a residential area of Ferguson. The bullets — apparently fired from a handgun — struck officers who were standing in front of the station, about 125 yards from the shooter.
Ahlbrand said about 20 of the protesters – roughly one-quarter of the crowd – shouted “personal insults and cursed at officers” for most of the two hours that he was present. He said protesters, who were in the street, repeatedly stepped onto the sidewalk and stood within inches of officers’ faces to yell at them.
“As I’m turning to look at the police, I see protesters on the ground crawling, trying to get to their cars,” Elzie said. “I saw the police were on the ground, too.”
“They shouted a number of things,” Ahlbrand said. “‘How many kids did you kill today?’” He said black officers were called “Uncle Tom.”
A minute later, Elzie said, the officers who had been on the ground stood up with their weapons drawn, pointed uphill. She saw one police officer being dragged back through the grass. Her immediate fear, she said, was that the police would respond with force and that she might get caught in the crossfire. But the officers did not shoot back.
“I don’t understand it,” said Ahlbrand, who is a sergeant with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. “They got what they have been asking for – for the chief to resign. Why are they angrier now?”
Thursday’s shooting opened a new chapter in a bitter debate about American policing, which began with Brown’s killing and the hyper-militarized response of local police to Ferguson protesters. Since then, public anger has erupted repeatedly at police violence — over the killing of a 12-year-old in Cleveland and an unarmed man in Madison, Wis., and after a New York police officer was not indicted for the choking death of an unarmed man in Staten Island.
Ahlbrand said he left about 30 minutes before the shooting, as tensions seemed to be subsiding.
Violence has also been aimed at police in recent months. In September, two police officers in the St. Louis area were fired upon and one of them was hit in the arm; police said the separate incidents did not appear tied to any protests.
Later, crowds and police began to dissipate, but Johnetta Elzie and several other protesters stuck around in hopes of securing the release of three people who had been arrested that night. Elzie said that about 40 protesters were left when shots rang out.
Police and protesters both said the shots did not come from the crowd still remaining outside the station, but rather from a street that ran away from the station, up a nearby hill. The shots were fired from about 125 yards away, police said. The bullets struck officers who were standing in front of the station.
Belmar, the county police chief, described it as “an ambush.”
“These police officers were standing there and they were shot,” Belmar said at an earlier news conference Thursday morning. “Just because they were police officers.”
Elzie, the witness, said she looked back at the police.
“As I’m turning to look at the police, I see protesters on the ground crawling, trying to get to their cars,” she said. “I saw the police were on the ground too.”
A minute later, Elzie said, the police who had been on the ground stood up with their weapons drawn, pointed uphill. She saw one officer being dragged back through the grass. Her immediate fear, she said, was that the police would respond with force and that she might get caught in the crossfire. But police did not shoot back.
Eventually, she said, a pastor and another protester escorted her across the street from where the bullets came so she could retrieve her car and leave.
Belmar said police believed the shots were fired from a handgun, and that they had recovered shell casings that might have come from this shooting. Although the sound of gunfire has been reported several times during the months of protests that followed Brown’s death, this is the first time that anyone has been reported shot.
The FBI is also involved in investigating the shooting, a law enforcement official said Thursday.
[Visualizing the rapid racial change in Ferguson over the past decade]
Belmar was careful not to assign blame to the protesters themselves. But he called the atmosphere surrounding the protests “very troubling” and said it can be difficult for officers to properly police these gatherings.
“The responsibility of last night’s shooting lies with whoever did that shooting,” Belmar said. “I want to be very clear about that. But it is a very difficult environment to work in.”
Thursday night’s shooting seemed to revive a bitter debate about American policing, which began with Brown’s killing, and the hyper-militarized response of local police to protests in Ferguson.
Since then, there have been outcries after police killed a 12 year-old in Cleveland and an unarmed man in Madison, Wisc. — and after a New York police officer was not indicted for the choking death of an un-armed man in Staten Island.
There have also been violent episodes aimed at police in recent months. In September, two police officers in the St. Louis area were fired upon, and one of them was hit in the arm; police said the separate incidents did not appear tied to any protests.
Two New York police officers were gunned down in their squad car in December, an episode that garnered international attention and was followed by officers speaking out about feeling targeted and dehumanized.
Two New York police officers were gunned down in their squad car in December, an episode that garnered international attention and was followed by officers speaking out about feeling targeted and dehumanized.
On Thursday in Missouri, Belmar pointed to what happened in New York, saying that his department came very close to seeing what happened there.
On Thursday, Brown’s parents — whose loss turned the world’s spotlight on Ferguson — condemned the latest shooting.
“We could have buried two police officers next week over this,” he said.
“We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement,” Brown’s parents said in a statement released through their attorney. “It cannot and will not be tolerated.”
In Ferguson, Brian Fletcher — a past mayor and a candidate for city council — said his adult daughter was on the family’s front porch with a friend around midnight when they heard the gunshots.
Sandhya Somashekhar, Mark Berman, Sari Horwitz and Justin Moyer in Washington contributed to this report.
After learning from Twitter that police officers may have been shot, she immediately woke up her parents.
Residents and local business owners are “angry and they’re starting to become very bitter” toward the protesters, said Fletcher.
He defended the leadership’s response to the DOJ report. “It’s been a week and several resignations, which is pretty fast action, and yet it seems like the protesters want blood, literally.”
Michael Brown’s parents condemned the shooting of the two officers.
“We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement,” Brown’s parents said in a statement released through their attorney on Thursday. “It cannot and will not be tolerated. We specifically denounce the actions of stand-alone agitators who unsuccessfully attempt to derail the otherwise peaceful and non-violent movement that has emerged throughout this nation to confront police brutality and to forward the cause of equality under the law for all.”
Although the motive and identity of the shooter in Ferguson is not known, Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, blamed leaders of anti-police protests.
“What we have are hatemongers and race baiters who are exploiting the tragedy of Ferguson to their advantage, who make people who have been oppressed feel empowered to act against authority figures,” Pasco said. “This has been playing out to varying degrees around the country. There has been a spike in these attacks against police since Ferguson, but it certainly isn’t anything knew.”
Thursday evening will present a key test for both the police and the protestors. One witness to the shooting, activist DeRay McKesson, said he planned to return, even if the shooting remained unsolved.
This isn’t the first time that shots have been fired at the police department. This is the first time they’ve hit someone,” McKesson said. But, he said, the cause that brought people to the police headquarters on Wednesday night — the Ferguson police department’s history — was still a problem. “All of that remains true. That didn’t change because of last night.”
Mark Berman, Kimberly Kindy, Sari Horwitz and Justin Moyer, in Washington, contributed to this report.
