Mayor urges calm after shooting near Ferguson

A crowd of 200 to 300 people gathered at the gas station after the shooting wearing yellow police tape around their necks and heads. Bricks and fireworks were also thrown, two of which were aimed at some 50 officers at the scene, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said.

Two officers were injured and four people were arrested for assault before calm was restored, Belmar added.

Referring to the death of Michael Brown, Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said at a news conference on Wednesday: "You could not even compare this with Ferguson."

'No winners'

The 18-year-old victim, since identified as Antonio Martin, was shot late on Tuesday night at a gas station. Police witnesses say that as an officer approached two men, one "pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer."

"Fearing for his life, the Berkeley officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him," police spokesman Brian Schellman said at a press conference. A second suspect fled and has not been apprehended, Schellman added.

"[The officer] will carry the weight of this for the rest of his life - certainly for the rest of his career," said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar. "There are no winners here."

No body camera

It later emerged that at the time of the confrontation, the 34-year-old officer was not wearing his body camera, and his police cruiser's dashboard camera was not activated because the car's emergency lights were not on.

Police have also since released video surveillance footage from the parking lot where the shooting took place. The approximately two-minute clip shows two young men leaving the store as a patrol car rolls up, and the officer gets out to speak with them.

About 90 seconds later, the video appears to show one of the men raising his arm. What he is holding is difficult to see, however, due to their distance from the camera.

Continued protests

Berkeley is directly next to the St. Louis suburb Ferguson, where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by officer Darren Wilson in August.

A decision by a grand jury not to indict Wilson, as well as another police officer responsible for the chokehold death of African American Eric Garner in New York City, has spawned protests across the US against racial profiling and brutality on the part of local police officers.

ksb/gsw (AFP, Reuters)