In what may deal a temporary setback to the ongoing Ferguson protests over racial bias, the city authorities have arrested a man and charged him with firing shots at two police officers during last Thursday’s protest outside the Ferguson police headquarters.
The authorities said Jeffrey Williams, the 20-year-old African-American suspect, admitted to the shootings, but claimed he was not targeting the police officers, but someone else with whom he had a dispute. St. louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch cast doubts on the suspect’s claim, saying he had been a part of the protest that day.
Williams has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault, a count of firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal activity. He has also been charged with firing a weapon from a vehicle. A handgun matching the shell casings at the scene has been recovered in the wake of Williams’ interrogation. Shooting at and injuring a law enforcement official, if proved, could lead to a life sentence, while it could be just seven years if the victim is a member of the public, legal experts said.
The two police officers, who were seriously injured in the shootings, were getting better. One officer, shot in the right cheek, just below the eye, had the bullet lodged behind his ear. In the case of the other officer, shot in the right shoulder, the bullet exited through his back. Both have left hospital. St. louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the two officers could have easily been killed, and called the attack “an ambush”.
Uneasy with the shootings that could dampen the protests, one of the organisers maintained that Williams was not a familiar face in the demonstrations taking place in Ferguson off and on since last August, when unarmed black teen Michael Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson, who was subsequently cleared by a grand jury. “It sets us like five steps back to say that it was a protester who did it,” said area organiser Bishop Derrick Robinson.