Officers deployed tear gas after a protest broke out in the midwestern U.S. city/state of St. Louis, Missouri following the fatal shooting of a young black man during a confrontation with police.
St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, was killed Wednesday when he pointed a gun at two white policemen as they were serving a search warrant on a house. Dotson said Ball-Bey and another man ran out of the house and into a back alley as officers gave chase.
As word of the shooting spread, neighborhood residents gathered at the scene and angrily demonstrated against the shooting.
Dotson said police fired tear gas at the protesters after many of them blocked an intersection, some throwing bottles and bricks. Nine people were arrested in the confrontation.
Confrontation
Dotson said police fired tear gas at the protesters after many of them blocked an intersection. Nine people were arrested in the confrontation.
"An area that's been plagued by violence, been plagued by gun violence, police officers were there today doing a job that we all ask them to do – to keep our community safe. A group of protesters came together and started to do acts of violence directed not only toward law enforcement but toward the neighborhood," Dotson said.
Brown death anniversary
Wednesday's shooting occurred a little more than a week after the first anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black man who was shot after a confrontation with a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Brown's death, and similar incidents across the United States, led to the "Black Lives Matter" national movement against abusive treatment of African-Americans at the hands of police.
