Cops say victim pointed gun at officer, release surveillance video
A new wave of anti-police protests erupted as yet another black teen was killed in a shooting by a white officer in Berkeley, Missouri — just two miles from Ferguson, the town ravaged by months of disturbances after the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in August. But the victim in this instance was armed and he pulled out the weapon, a 9 mm handgun, and pointed it at the officer, the St louis County Police said after the confrontation outside a gas station on Tuesday night. As word spread, a crowd of 200-300 people gathered at the spot and clashed with the police.
By Wednesday morning, the police released a surveillance video on the confrontation leading to the shooting by the officer to make the point that the suspect was armed and the officer acted in self-defence. The victim, still to be named by the police, was identified in some media reports as Antonio Martin, 18. A local TV station quoted the youth’s mother as saying that her son did not have a gun and had only just left their home to go and meet his girlfriend.
The shooting came about even as demonstrations have been continuing for weeks in New York and several other cities in protest against the “police brutality against black men” and the decision of grand juries not to indict white police officers responsible for the deaths of Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York. The white police officer, who too was still to be officially identified, approached the victim and another person at the side of the gas station while conducting a routine check. As he walked towards them, the victim pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer, St. louis County police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schellman said in a statement.
“Fearing for his life, the Berkeley officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him. The second subject fled the scene,” Schellman said. The video is said to show the officer move back and fire three shots. One shot struck the suspect, another struck the tire of the officer’s patrol car. Police do not believe the suspect fired any shots.
Apart from the grand jury decision not to indict police officers in the Brown and Garner cases, two other similar decisions have prompted continuation of the protests. In Milwaukee, a county prosecutor said on Monday that he would not charge Christopher Manney, a white police officer who shot and killed a black resident, Dontre D. Hamilton, in April after an encounter in a park.
And in Houston, a grand jury on Tuesday decided that it would not indict police officer Juventino Castro for the fatal shooting of Jordan Baker, an unarmed black man, at a strip mall in January. In New York, more than 1,000 protesters defied Mayor Bill de Blasio’s call for a pause in the wake of Saturday’s “revenge killing” of two police officers by an African-American. Carrying signs that read “Jail Killer Cops” and “Stop Racist Police Terror”, the protesters marched through major thoroughfares and blocked traffic.