News: Black teenager shot by Missouri police

Missouri police
officer fatally shoots
black teenager in St
Louis suburb

Incident in suburb of Berkeley
takes place near where Michael
Brown was killed by an officer in
August

An 18-year-old black teenager has
been shot dead by police at a gas
station in a suburb of St Louis,
Missouri.
A crowd of about 100 people
gathered early on Wednesday at
the scene in Berkeley, close to the
town of Ferguson, where 18-year-
old Michael Brown was shot and
killed by a police officer in
August.
A spokesman for St Louis County
police department said an officer
shot and killed a man who drew a
handgun and pointed it at him as
the officer approached him and
another man.
The police said an investigation
had begun into the incident,
which occurred at 11.15pm at a
Mobil petrol station, when the
officer approached two male
suspects.
In a statement , St Louis police
said: “The Berkeley police officer
exited his vehicle and approached
the subjects when one of the men
pulled a handgun and pointed it
at the officer. Fearing for his life,
the Berkeley officer fired several
shots, striking the subject, fatally
wounding him. The second subject
fled the scene ... St Louis County
police detectives have recovered
the deceased subject’s handgun at
the scene.”
Authorities did not immediately
identify the man who was shot.
But the St Louis Post-Dispatch
reported that a woman at the
scene, Toni Martin, said he was
her son, 18-year-old Antonio
Martin.
Toni Martin told the newspaper
that her son was with his
girlfriend at the time of the
shooting.
The protesters who gathered early
on Wednesday milled around the
gas pumps at the station, some
shouting at police officers.
Some had strands of yellow police-
line tape draped around their
neck.
Authorities from multiple
agencies, some in riot gear, stood
among the protesters. Across the
street, another gas station’s glass
doors were shattered, and police
were standing outside the door,
turning people away.
Photos from the scene showed
authorities scuffling with at least
a few protesters.
The incident comes at a time of
mounting tension between the
police and the community in the
US, after nationwide protests
against racism and police
brutality.
Brown’s death led to weeks of
protests and some looting in the
St Louis area, actions that were
renewed last month when a grand
jury chose not to indict Officer
Darren Wilson.
Over the weekend, two New York
police officers were shot dead in
what was seen as as a reprisal
attack after a grand jury voted
not to indict an NYPD officer who
killed an unarmed black man in
an illegal choke hold.