A white police officer killed a black teenager who was armed in a St. Louis suburb late Tuesday, leading to a protest and four arrests at the scene of the shooting, according to police.
The death of Antonio Martin, 18 years old, comes as tensions run high in U.S. cities over the use of deadly force by police. The shooting happened in Berkeley, Mo., just miles from the town of Ferguson, where the death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in August sparked months of demonstrations that turned violent at times.
In Berkeley on Wednesday night, up to 100 protesters had been marching in the streets, even shutting down parts of Interstate 170 multiple times, according to Michael Neal with the Berkeley Police Department. Berkeley police declined to say if any arrests had been made as of late Wednesday evening, as numbers of protesters dwindled to around 50.
Berkeley officials moved quickly to keep the public from drawing a connection to Ferguson. Berkeley’s population is more than 80% black, and Mayor Theodore Hoskins pointed to its large number of black police officers and he and other elected officials who are African-American. In Ferguson, the city’s population is two-thirds African-American, while its city council and police force are largely white.
The mayor also said, unlike Ferguson, the shooting was captured on a surveillance camera and a weapon was recovered on the scene.
“We’re trying to indicate that this wasn’t the same as Ferguson,” Mr. Hoskins said at a news conference. “You couldn’t even compare this with Ferguson or the Garner case in New York.”
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
