Los Angeles Times: St Louis remained tense on Thursday after a white police officer shot and killed a black man Wednesday night, just two months after a similar shooting in nearby Ferguson, Mo., prompted weeks of violent protests.
An off-duty St. Louis police officer, working in uniform as a security guard in the historic Shaw district, had a confrontation with an 18-year-old black man, police said.
The man fired three times before his gun jammed and the officer returned fire with 17 shots, killing the suspect, police said.
The family of the dead man insists he was holding only a sandwich, not a gun.
The latest incident comes on the heels of the Aug. 9 shooting in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, when a white officer, Darren Wilson, shot unarmed Michael Brown, 18.
That shooting, which is being investigated by a grand jury, became a symbol of African American anger at police shootings.
The latest death comes just before what activists are calling a “Weekend of Resistance” in St. Louis, where protesters plan to highlight the Ferguson shooting.
“In case we needed another reminder, this is not about the city of Ferguson,” St. Louis alderman Antonio French tweeted. “This is about all of St. Louis -- and beyond.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Syrette Meyers said that her son, Vonderrit D. Meyers, was holding a sandwich when the officer killed him Wednesday night.
Asked about police claims that there was evidence that the young man fired three shots and recovered a weapon at the scene, she told the wire service: “Police lie. They lied about Michael Brown, too.”
At a news conference early Thursday, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told reporters that the officer fired 17 times after the suspect had fired three shots at him. Dotson said he did not know how many times Meyers had been hit.
A 9-millimeter Ruger was recovered, police said. The unnamed officer, 32, has been on the force for six years and has been placed on administrative leave, police said.
The Shaw district of St. Louis includes the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Census data from 2010 show whites in a slight majority, closely followed by African Americans at about 42% of the population.
About 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the officer was patrolling in a car when he saw three males near Shaw Boulevard and Klemm Street, Dotson said.
Even though the officer was wearing his uniform, he was actually working for a private security company that employs several St. Louis police officers. The officer was working the second job with the approval of the department.
One of the trio started to run away but stopped, Dotson said. The officer did a U-turn and then all three men ran, with the officer in pursuit in his car. The officer left his vehicle and continued to follow on foot through a gangway.
“When the officer went through the gangway, he saw the three gentlemen had come back together,” Dotson told reporters. “One of the gentleman started to approach the officer in an aggressive manner. The officer was giving verbal commands, telling them to stop, telling them how to surrender, telling them that they were under arrest.
“The suspect continued to come towards the officer until they got into a physical altercation,” the chief said. “The suspect and the officer were hands on with each other. At that time, the suspect's gray hooded sweatshirt comes off and the suspect starts to run up a hill.”
The officer said he saw what appeared to be a gun, the chief continued.
The officer “wanted to be certain that it was a gun and did not fire at that point. The suspect pointed the gun at the officer and fired at least three rounds at the police officer. We believe this to be true because there are three projectiles that we recovered with trajectories going towards the officer, down the hill, and one piece of ballistic evidence located behind the officer. At that point, the officer returned fire. As the officer moved towards the suspect, the suspect continued to pull the trigger on his gun,” Dotson said.
The gun malfunctioned and jammed, the chief said.
The officer fired 17 rounds. Dotson said he didn't know how many of those bullets struck the man, or why the officer, who wasn't hurt, fired that many shots.
“When the investigation is complete and during the investigation, in consultation with the circuit attorney’s office, we will present that case to them and ask them to review it to make a decision about the officer’s actions and if they were appropriate in that situation,” Dotson said.
Dotson wouldn’t discuss the dead man’s records but said the 18-year-old was known to authorities.
Online court documents show that Meyers was charged in June in St. Louis with the unlawful use of a weapon, a felony, and misdemeanor resisting arrest. A hearing that had been scheduled for Monday was continued until Nov. 17.
In the aftermath of the shooting, at least 200 people took to the streets, jeering at police and blocking traffic on Grand Boulevard, television footage showed. There were no reports of injuries, though some police cars were damaged.
Some chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” a slogan from protesters in neighboring Ferguson, Mo.
Los Angeles Times staff writers Ryan Parker and Kurtis Lee contributed to this report
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