NORMANDY, Missouri — The 18-year-old who suffered a gunshot wound after firing at officers Wednesday afternoon in a St. Louis suburb has died, authorities confirmed Thursday. Police have identified him as Amonderez P. Green ;from Florissant, Missouri, Sgt. ;Brian Schellman of the St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement. It’s unclear how Green sustained the injury. Police in Normandy, where the incident occurred, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that “it appears at this time that the male was not struck by law enforcement gunfire.” However, people claiming to have witnessed the incident said otherwise. The Normandy Police Department said that after police were called in to help find a “suicidal subject” whose family was attempting to calm…
NORMANDY, Missouri — The 18-year-old who suffered a gunshot wound after firing at officers Wednesday afternoon in a St. Louis suburb has died, authorities confirmed Thursday.
Police have identified him as Amonderez P. Green ;from Florissant, Missouri, Sgt. ;Brian Schellman of the St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement.
It’s unclear how Green sustained the injury. Police in Normandy, where the incident occurred, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that “it appears at this time that the male was not struck by law enforcement gunfire.” However, people claiming to have witnessed the incident said otherwise.
The Normandy Police Department said that after police were called in to help find a “suicidal subject” whose family was attempting to calm him down, Green fired at the officers. When officers attempted to speak to him, he allegedly removed a gun from his waistband and began firing at them. After deploying a Taser to ;no effect, the officers returned fire, the department said.
The teen fled, and another gunshot was heard out of the officers’ sight, according to the statement. The officers then reportedly found him on the ground, unresponsive.
A woman who says she witnessed the shooting, but asked to remain anonymous due to concerns about safety and the potential repercussions of speaking publicly, told HuffPost that she saw two officers on the scene with the teenager.
Looking out her window, the witness said she saw Green — who was wearing a red, orange and yellow jacket — turn to face the officers, who were just six or seven feet away from him, when one of the cops shot him in the face.
“We heard approximately six gunshots ring out. I yelled and told my daughter to get down,” she said.
“He was right at eye level as [the officer] shot him,” the witness continued. ;”It was not a suicide. At all.”
Dominique Clemons, who says she witnessed the incident from about three houses up the street, also told HuffPost that the police shot the teen.
“While he was running, he turned around to face the police and that’s when he got shot in the face,” she said, “I saw his body drop. They shot him in the face, his whole right side of his face was gone, his top lip was gone.”
In a video of the scene that Clemons reposted on Twitter, a gunshot can be heard, as well as a man yelling “don’t shoot me” and “don’t kill me, oh God.”
Deron Smith told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he saw Green running from the officers, but that he ;didn’t appear to be holding a gun ;because he was using two hands to scale a fence. Police, however, said at a press conference that a gun was recovered at the scene.
Normandy Chief of Police Col. Frank Mininni told HuffPost that St. Louis County police were assisting his department in probing the incident.
“In light of the fact that a Normandy Police Officer returned fire on the suspect after being fired upon, we immediately requested an outside, independent investigation from the St., Louis County Police Department,” he said. “This decision was based upon transparency and an unbiased investigation from an outside department.”
The St. Louis County Police Department confirmed to HuffPost that it is working with Normandy on the investigation.
Jermell Simpson, the victim’s father, was distraught.
“I apologize for cussin’, but that’s the only damn son I got,” he said in a video posted to Instagram Wednesday night. “When he started running, Ferguson [police] started shooting.” ;(A photographer at the St. Louis American, which partners with HuffPost in the region, confirmed the man in the video is the father.)
While the shooting took place in Normandy, several witnesses said some police on the scene were wearing Ferguson uniforms. A spokeswoman for the Normandy Police Department told St. Louis Public Radio that while Ferguson officers were present, it was a Normandy officer who fired at Green. ;
“We even told Ferguson … we had everything under control,” Simpson says in the video.
Simpson later told the Post-Dispatch that the authorities’ account of events was a “total lie.”
Ferguson is the town where ;Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson last year, sparking protests across the nation. Wilson did not face charges in Brown’s killing.
Normandy has a population of about 5,000 that is more than two-thirds black, though the town’s police force is ;predominantly white. ;
Raillan Brooks and Willa Frej contributed reporting.
HuffPost’s Mariah Stewart reported from Normandy thanks to reader support of the Ferguson Fellowship. Click here ;to back more reporting in the region. Read Stewart’s profile of Normandy, published last April. ;
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Witnesses Dispute Police Account Of Teen Who Died Of Gunshot Near Ferguson
