Ferguson police officers were victims of 'ambush', St Louis police chief claims

By The Guardian

The two police officers who were shot in Ferguson were the victims of an “ambush” by shooters who might have been associated with protesters outside a police station, a police chief claimed on Thursday.

Less than an hour after St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar made the comments at a press conference, armed police were pictured on a roof of a home in Ferguson, as part of a fast-unfolding investigation into the shooting.

Brian Schellman, a spokesman for St Louis police, told the Guardian the “tactical situation” developing in Ferguson was “part of the active investigation from last night’s events”.

Around noon, the Associated Press, citing a St Louis County spokesperson, reported that two people had been taken in for questioning. Schellman told the Guardian there had been no arrests.

“We are currently speaking with people. No arrests,” he said.

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, who last week threatened to disband Ferguson’s police department after a damning report into discrimination by the force, on Thursday described the attack on the officers as “inexcusable and repugnant”. 

“Such senseless acts of violence threaten the very reforms that nonviolent protesters in Ferguson and around the country have been working towards for the past several months,” he said.

He said “the full range of investigative resources” at the Department of Justice would be made available to law enforcement authorities in Missouri. “And we will continue to stand unequivocally against all acts of violence against cops whenever and wherever they occur.”

The family of Michael Brown, the black man whose shooting by a Ferguson police officer in August last year sparked protests that have since snowballed nationwide, forcefully condemned the attack.

“We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement. It cannot and will not be tolerated,” the family said in a statement.

“We specifically denounce the actions of stand-alone agitators who unsuccessfully attempt to derail the otherwise peaceful and non-violent movement that has emerged throughout this nation to confront police brutality and to forward the cause of equality under the law for all.

The attack on the officers took place around midnight on Wednesday as a small demonstration wound down in the St Louis suburb, which has been gripped by unrest since the fatal police shooting of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, last year.

Police chief Belmar made clear he was not blaming demonstrators for an attack in which one officer was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder, both of whom he said were lucky to survive.

However, he repeatedly drew attention to the “agitated” and “rowdy” demonstration that had taken place on a road just in front of the Ferguson police department – about 125 yards from where police saw muzzle flashes from a suspected handgun or pistol.

“I would have to imagine that these protesters were among the shooters that shot at the police officers,” he said. Protesters have pushed back hard at any suggestions they were connected to the shooters and point out the shots appear to have been fired from a hill behind a dwindling group of demonstrators who were celebrating the resignation of Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson.

Belmar said one officer, from Webster Groves, a 32-year-old who has worked in the department for five years, was shot in the cheek and the bullet lodged just behind his ear. The St Louis County officer, who is 41 and a 17-year law enforcement veteran, was shot in the shoulder, he said. The bullet exited his back, near to his spine.

“We’re lucky by God’s grace we didn’t lose two officers last night,” Belmar said, comparing the incident to the shooting of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in December last year. “We could have buried two police officers next week over this.”

However, protesters stressed that the shots emanated from an area they were not demonstrating in. Tony Rice, a Ferguson resident and protester, said “the shots came from up Tiffin Avenue” – an upwards-sloping street directly opposite the police department. DeRay Mckesson, a prominent leader of the Ferguson protest movement, agreed that the shots were fired from “the alley or street” behind where protesters stood.

“I’m 100% sure on that,” Rice told the Guardian. “Clearly no one shot a gun close to me.”

Rice recalled in a telephone interview that he “heard gunshots go off, and felt a bullet whizz by my head”, prompting him to take cover from the direction of the shots by hiding behind a car, while facing the police line.

“I saw the officer who was shot in the face hit the ground,” said Rice. “He was hollering and moaning. Not saying words but just screaming. Other officers were jumping around him tending to him. Some were scrambling to get out of the way.”

Rice said the officer struck in the face had been standing on the pavement outside police headquarters, and the officer hit in the shoulder was on a grassy patch behind him. He said that from a high of about 200 protesters earlier in the evening, numbers had fallen to between 30 and 50 as people went home for the night.

Belmar provided a similar account of a protest that was dissipating – with protesters and police returning home – when the shots were fired. The shootings occurred just hours after Thomas Jackson became the sixth senior official in Ferguson to lose his job following the publication of a damning federal report on the city’s criminal justice system.

He said that at the start of the protest, at 8pm, there were about 150 protesters and just 15 police officers. However, as protesters became more “agitated”, Belmar said, reinforcements were called. There were three arrests of protesters blocking the road in front of the police department.

By 11.45pm, Belmar said, what had been a “pretty rowdy” demonstration was winding down. “I imagine we had 75 protesters, probably 40 police officers left at this time, so we’re thinking that this is thinning out,” he said.

Around 15 minutes later, three or four shots rang out, and two officers hit the ground. The officers had been lined up in front of the police station, making them easy targets. “This is really an ambush,” he said. “You can’t see it coming, you don’t understand that it’s going to happen, you’re basically defenceless.”

“I feel very confident that whoever did this was there for the wrong reason, not the right reason,” Belmar said. “I do feel that there was an unfortunate association with that [protest] gathering.”

He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that folks that want to express their first amendment rights have the authority to do that. But when you look at the tenor of at least some of the people that are involved in the protest or civil unrest, it at times can be very troubling.”

It was unclear if there would be further protests in Ferguson on Thursday. However, from 6pm local time, the St Louis County police department and the Missouri state highway patrol were set to assume command of security around any demonstrations.

The arrangement has echoes of the change in protest policing arrangements in Ferguson introduced after violent clashes between demonstrators and police in August last year.

“The St Louis County Police Department is not assuming routine policing services in the City of Ferguson, as these responsibilities are still in the hands of the Ferguson Police Department,” Schellman, the police spokesman, said. He added the special arrangement for policing of protests would last “until further notice”.

After the press conference, St Louis County police department shared pictures of the officer’s blood-spattered face mask. Missouri governor Jay Nixon called on Ferguson residents to come forward with information. “The fact that these officers appear to have been intentionally targeted is deeply troubling,” he said.

The shots were the first to strike law enforcement officers in the seven months since protests erupted following the shooting of Brown by Darren Wilson, a white officer. Gunfire was heard repeatedly during protests and rioting in August, when Brown was killed, and November, when prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Wilson.

“I think it is a miracle that we haven’t had any instances similar to this over the summer and fall, with the amount of gunfire we would hear,” Belmar said.