BERKELEY, Mo. — Several hundred protesters shut down an interstate highway in this St. Louis suburb Wednesday evening, the day after Antonio Martin, a black 18-year-old, was shot to death after pointing a loaded pistol at a police officer at a nearby gas station. Gunshots were fired and at least two women were arrested after several people attempted to loot a beauty supply store, breaking its windows and doors. It was not immediately clear whether protesters or police officers fired the shots. Dozens of police officers, some in riot gear and others holding clubs, patrolled the crowd, which also staged a “die in,” according to Mashable reporter Christopher Miller. Martin’s …
BERKELEY, Mo. — Several hundred protesters shut down an interstate highway in this St. Louis suburb Wednesday evening, the day after Antonio Martin, a black 18-year-old, was shot to death after pointing a loaded pistol at a police officer at a nearby gas station.
Gunshots were fired and at least two women were arrested after several people attempted to loot a beauty supply store, breaking its windows and doors. It was not immediately clear whether protesters or police officers fired the shots. Dozens of police officers, some in riot gear and others holding clubs, patrolled the crowd, which also staged a “die in,” according to Mashable reporter Christopher Miller.
Martin’s death occurred a few miles from where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by police Officer Darren Wilson in the town of Ferguson in August. Protests have rocked Ferguson’s streets since Brown’s killing, gaining momentum after a grand jury declined to indict Wilson for his murder in November.
Berkeley Mayor Theodore Haskins said during a press conference Wednesday that Martin’s death shouldn’t be compared with Brown’s. According to Hoskins, surveillance footage at the Mobil station where Martin was shot showed Martin pointed a gun at the police officer, who then ran backward and opened fire. The officer’s name has not been released.
“We say ‘black lives matter;’ this was not the case,” Hoskins said. “You can’t even compare this with Ferguson or the Garner case in New York. … We have the video and I can assure you that what’s on the video is what we’re going to use.”
Hoskins added that the majority of Berkeley’s leadership is black, including the mayor and the police chief, along with much of the police force and 85 percent of the town’s residents. As The Huffington Post noted earlier, the police officer who shot Martin was not using the body camera he had recently been issued, and the camera on the dashboard of his patrol car had not been activated.
Police stand guard in Berkeley, Missouri early Dec. 24, after a police officer shot Antonio Martin, who was armed. (Instagram: jeconnell)
Wednesday’s events in Berkeley came as tensions have been increasing between police officers and protesters in New York City, where two police officers were assassinated over the weekend.
New York officials have insisted that 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos execution style while they were parked in front of a Brooklyn housing project and then killed himself in a nearby subway station, suffered from mental illness and was acting alone. But the head of New York City’s largest police union blamed Brinsley’s actions on the anti-police rhetoric spouting from demonstrations that have gripped the city since a grand jury declined to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of unarmed black man Eric Garner just a few days after Wilson’s non-indictment.
Although New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called on protesters to halt their actions until after Liu and Ramos’ funerals, hundreds of New Yorkers marched through the city Tuesday night, claiming lawmakers had no right to encroach on their First Amendment rights. While many demonstrators have also participated in vigils honoring Liu and Ramos, they say the tragedy shouldn’t take away from their larger message about racial inequality in America.
“In light of all we know, and with respect to all who hurt most now, we must not let misconceptions prevail,” Opal Tometti, co-founder of the activist group Black Lives Matter, wrote in a blog post on HuffPost earlier this week. “This is a challenging moment, but we must maintain the integrity of our message and moral movement.”
In addition to events in St. Louis and New York, protests over police brutality have taken place in other major cities over the past several weeks, including Washington, D.C., and Berkeley, California, which experienced several days of violence earlier this month.
On Tuesday, a grand jury in Texas declined to indict a Houston police officer in the shooting death of 26-year-old Jordan Baker, who was black and unarmed.
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Antonio Martin Protesters Shut Down Missouri Highway Amid Gunshots, Looting, Arrests
