A police officer in Ferguson, Mo. was critically injured after clashing with demonstrators at the city’s police headquarters on the 10th anniversary since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
Several people were arrested at the protest and five are facing charges, CBS News affiliate KMOV reported, with Ferguson police chief Troy Doyle telling reporters at a press briefing that Officer Travis Brown suffered a severe brain injury Friday after being knocked to the ground by protesters during clashes along a fence surrounding the station, adding: “he is in an area hospital right now fighting for his life.” Two other officers also were hurt, one sustaining an ankle injury and another an abrasion. Both were treated at the scene.
The unrest came following day of peaceful tributes and memorials marking the death of Brown, a Black 18-year-old whose fatal shooting by a White Ferguson police officer on Aug. 9, 2014. Doyle said demonstrators gathered at the police station after dark and began shaking a security fence surrounding the building. After the fence was broken by the shaking, a team of officers were sent out to make arrests on charges of criminal damage to property at which time a protester “assaulted” the officer, who fell and his head after being shoved backwards. Said Doyle: “As a result one of my police officers suffered a severe brain injury. He is in an area hospital right now fighting for his life.”
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell told reporters that Elijah Gantt, 28, of East St. Louis, Ill., has been charged with first-degree assault, resisting arrest, first-degree property damage and two counts of fourth-degree assault. Police say Gantt was one of many who pulled on and damaged a section of fencing around the police station. Police said body camera footage showed officers ordering Gantt to stop and telling him he was being arrested. He is being held on $500,000 bond.
Doyle stated that city officials have reformed the department in the decade since Brown’s slaying and that Friday’s disturbances were unjustified: “The Ferguson Police Department since 2014 has been a punching bag for this community. We don’t even have those officers here anymore, so what are you protesting? Everything that the activist community has advocated for — body-worn cameras, crisis intervention training, all of it — we have done it all. Ten years later I have an officer fighting for his life. It’s enough.”
Doyle added that Officer Brown, who is Black, started with the department in January and previously worked for the St. Louis County Police Department: “He wanted to be part of the change. He wanted to make an impact in our community. He’s the type of officer that we want in our community. And what happens? He gets assaulted. I had to look his mother in the eye and tell her what happened to her son. I’m never going to do that again, I promise you that.”
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