An off-duty St. Louis police officer shoots, kills a man in the Shaw neighborhood. KSDK-TV, St. Louis
Crowds confront police near the scene in in south St. Louis where a man was fatally shot by an off-duty St. Louis police officer on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014.(Photo: David Carson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, AP)
Angry protests erupted Wednesday night in the the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis after an off-duty police officer shot and killed an African-American teenager who, police said, had fired three shots at him.
Police cordoned off a major street in the largely African-American area as the demonstrators denounced police and smashed windows on several police cars.
Some in the crowd shouted "Hands up, don't shoot," referring to the fatal shooting in August of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in the suburb of Ferguson, about 16 miles away.
Some social media postings urged residents of Ferguson to come to St. Louis to join the protest in the Shaw neighborhood, police said.
Unlike the Ferguson protests, demonstrators did not attack or damage businesses and the police did not try to confront the demonstrators, move them off the street or use riot gear.
Police Chief Sam Dotson, of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters that the police showed a "tremendous amount of restraint" despite the damage to police cars.
"We will do everything we can to support everybody's right to protest and allow their voices to be heard as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights," Dotson said.
The police chief said the shooting in Shaw unfolded after a 32-year-old officer, working off-duty for a private security firm, confronted three black teens who fled as he drove by.
After a chase on foot, one of the teens approached the officer "in an aggressive manner," Dotson said, and refused to stop or surrender.
The two got into a "physical alteration" that pulled off the suspect's gray-hooded sweater. As the teenager ran away, grabbing at his waist, Dotson said, the officer felt that the teenager was carry a firearm.
Dotson said, however, that the officer, a six-year veteran of the St. Louis police force, did not open fire because "he wanted to be certain it was a gun."
At one point, he said, the suspect turned and "pointed the gun at the officer and fired at least three rounds at the officer." He said the suspect tried to continue firing, but his gun jammed.
The officer responded by firing at least 17 rounds at the suspect, killing him. The officer was not injured.
Dotson said a 9mm Ruger handgun, allegedly belonging to the suspect, was recovered at the scene and a forensics search located three projectiles that had been fired at the officer.
"An investigation will decide if the officer's behavior was appropriate," the police chief told reporters.
St. Louis Alderman Antonio French of the 21st Ward posted on Twitter that the victim's mother came to the scene of the shooting and fainted. "An ambulance came to attend to her," French tweeted. "There is nothing like a mother's pain at the loss of a child."
Relatives of the victim, who identified him as Vonderrit Myers Jr., claimed that he had been unarmed, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Teyonna Myers, 23, told the newspaper that Myers was her cousin. "He was unarmed," she said. "He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It's like Michael Brown all over again."
On Twitter, users began using the hashtag #16shots and #shawshooting to express their anger at the second fatal police shooting in the area in two months.
In Ferguson, police officer Darren Wilson has not been charged in the shooting of Michael Brown. A grand jury is currently investigating the incident.
Contributing: Jimmy Bernhard, KSDK-TV, St. Louis
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