Louis County declares state of emergency for Ferguson

In the statement, Stenger said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar shall immediately take over the operation of police emergency management in Ferguson and the surrounding areas.

The shooting prompted hundreds of people to flee the demonstration. They were arrested when they blocked the courthouse’s entrance.

Author and activist Cornel West, along with several prominent protesters including DeRay McKesson, 30, and Johnetta Elzie, 26, were arrested.

Belmar said that after a shootout between at least six people, the suspect ran away but then shot at police who were chasing him in an unmarked vehicle with emergency lights flashing.

“I’m just being fed a bunch of lies about my son by the police”, Harris said in a telephone interview. “Protesters are people that are out there that are talking about a way to effect change, whatever that may be”.

Police, protesters and people who live and work in the St Louis, Missouri suburb were braced for what nightfall might bring following more violence along West Florissant Avenue, the same thoroughfare that was the site of massive protests and rioting after Mr Brown was fatally shot last year in a confrontation with a Ferguson officer.

Unfortunately, that is the scenario that played out, as peaceful weekend protests over the police shooting death of Brown, 18, turned violent Sunday night.

“As we have seen over the recent months and years, not only does violence obscure any message of peaceful protest, it places the community, as well as the officers who seek to protect it, in harm’s way”, Lynch said in prepared remarks to the Fraternal Order of Police.

Later Monday, activists targeted the St. Louis County headquarters of Enterprise Holdings, the nation’s largest vehicle rental company, to protest the work of the Keefe Group, a subsidiary that stocks prison commissaries where inmates can buy snacks, clothing, toiletries, prepaid telephone calling cards and other items.

St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said Harris Jr. shot a “remarkable amount of gunfire” into the windshield of a van containing plainclothes police on Sunday night.

Karen Harris said her nephew Tyrone attended the protests because he and Brown were friends. A 17-year-old was shot in the chest and shoulder while a 19-year-old was shot in the chest, but their injuries were not life-threatening, the St. Louis County Police said in a news release.

One officer was treated for cuts after a rock was thrown at his face, and two officers were pepper-sprayed by protesters, county police said.

Michael Brown Sr. comforts his wife Cal Brown during a moment of silence at memorial service marking the anniversary of his son’s death on Sunday. “I get it. But we can’t sustain this as we move forward”, he said. In addition, there were more than 100 uniformed officers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Ferguson and St. Louis County police departments.

Four officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave, he said, mentioning earlier that they were in plainclothes but wearing police vests. When they didn’t comply, officers advanced and took several people into custody, handcuffing them on the ground.