Man shot by police in Ferguson charged with multiple counts
FERGUSON, Mo. -- Prosecutors have filed 10 counts against Tyrone Harris, the 18-year-old black suspect who was critically wounded after being shot by police Sunday night in Ferguson.
Meanwhile on Monday, police detained several protesters in St. Louis at a planned rally in front of the courthouse to mark the death of Michael Brown one year ago. Small group of protestors remained in front of the courthouse Monday afternoon after others were detained.
The office of St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch on Monday announced charges that include five counts of armed criminal action, four counts of first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer and one firearms charge against Harris. All 10 charges are felonies. He is currently being held on a $250,000 cash bond.
Harris is in "critical, unstable" condition after being struck when the officers returned fire, the St. Louis County Police chief Jon Belmar said early Monday.
Tyrone Harris Sr., Harris' father, calls authorities' account of the confrontation "a bunch of lies," and says his son was unarmed. He tells The Associated Press that Tyrone Harris Jr. was shot eight to 12 times.
Belmar said at a news conference that plainclothes officers had been tracking the man, who they believed was armed, during a protest marking the anniversary of the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, reports CBS affiliate KMOV.
According to the St. Louis County Police Department, two people were firing gunshots at one another in the 9200 block of West Florissant around 11:10 p.m. Sunday during protests. While exchanging gunfire, one of the suspects ran across a parking lot in the area and was spotted by St. Louis County Police Detectives, who were in an unmarked police van, reports CBS affiliate KMOV.
At the height of what was already a rowdy protest in which rocks and bottles were thrown at officers, gunshots rang out from the area near a strip of stores, including some that had been looted. Belmar believes the shots came from about six different shooters. What prompted the shooting wasn't clear, but Belmar said the groups had been feuding.
At one point, the suspect crossed the street and apparently spotted the plainclothes officers arriving in an unmarked van with distinctive red and blue police lights, Belmar said. He said the suspect shot into the hood and windshield.
The officers fired back at him from inside the vehicle then pursued him on foot when he ran.
The suspect again fired on the officers when he became trapped in a fenced-in area, the chief said, and all four officers fired back. He was struck and fell.
Belmar waved off any notion that the people with the weapons were part of the protest.
"They were criminals. They weren't protesters," he said.
The suspect had a semi-automatic 9MM gun that was stolen last year from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, according to the chief.
"There is a small group of people out there that are intent on making sure that peace doesn't prevail," he said. "There are a lot of emotions. I get it. But we can't sustain this as we move forward."
Protest leaders have been critical of the shooting involving plainclothes officers. The Ferguson Action Council is a coalition of organizations that have united in protests. Some members of the council released a statement critical of the police response during the Sunday night protest.
Kayla Reed of the Organization for Black Struggle says the force shown by police was "excessive and antagonistic." She called it a "poor decision" for officers to be in plain clothes because it made it difficult for people involved in protests to identify police.
She and others were also concerned because police were not wearing body cameras. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar says the department doesn't have funding for body cameras for all of its nearly 900 officers.
It wasn't immediately clear if the latest police-involved shooting would spur renewed unrest in Ferguson, the site of many protests -- some violent -- in the aftermath of Brown's death on Aug. 9, 2014. Protest groups were quick to criticize the police response to protesters who gathered along West Florissant Avenue on Sunday night.
An NAACP official says he doesn't expect the shooting of a suspect by a Ferguson police officer on the anniversary of Michael Brown's death to escalate into unrest in the St. Louis suburb.
NAACP board member John Gaskin III says some people may not believe the police account of the incident overnight that left a shooting suspect critically wounded, noting "there's still a tremendous level of distrust between law enforcement and the community."
Nonetheless, Gaskin says he expects Monday night to be free of reactive violence, thievery and destruction.
Gaskin also credited St. Louis County's police chief, Jon Belmar, with distinguishing between activists who marched respectfully to commemorate Brown's death and those who went "off track" and turned violent Sunday night.
Ferguson Action Council, a collaborative effort and coalition of organizations founded after the death of Michael Brown, is the organization responsible for the #UNITEDWEFIGHT weekend of events planned in Ferguson for the anniversary of Michael Brown's death. Monday marks the final day of events, coined #BlackOutMonday and Moral Monday and described as, "Day of civil disobedience and national call to action."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch voiced strong support on Monday for the country's police officers, praising them as peacemakers and encouraging them to be part of the national conversation about improving relationships with minority communities.
The address to the National Fraternal Order of Police in Pittsburgh reaffirmed the Justice Department's support for law enforcement at a time of unease between police departments and the communities they serve.
"Recent events in communities across the country have served as stark and tragic reminders of the tensions that exist in too many neighborhoods between law enforcement officers and the people we serve," Lynch said. "One year after the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, we have yet again seen the consequences for officers and residents when those tensions erupt into unrest and violence."
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that one of their reporters, Paul Hampel was beaten, bloodied and robbed by a group of attackers as he covered protests on Sunday night. He spent the night in the hospital.
Kansas City police arrested four people during a protest marking the anniversary. The Kansas City Star reports dozens of protesters gathered near a shopping center Sunday evening.
Police arrested four people who put tape across a roadway and lay down in the street. They were cited for blocking a roadway. Protesters also gathered at another location in Kansas City on Sunday.
Local pastor Michael Brooks said that protest was also to remember Ryan Stokes, a 24-year-old black man killed by Kansas City police in 2013.
Police said Stokes had a gun and didn't obey commands to show his hands. Stokes' family disputes that he had a gun and said he might not have heard the commands.