Two police officers have been shot during a protest outside the Ferguson police headquarters early this morning. Both of the wounded officers have serious injuries. The shooting came just hours after Police Chief Thomas Jackson quit following last week’s Justice Department reports finding widespread racial bias in the city’s criminal justice system. Jackson is the sixth Ferguson official to be forced out in the wake of the report, including the city manager and the top municipal judge. We are joined from Ferguson by Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, who witnessed last night’s shooting, and Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the Ferguson Legal Defense Committee.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Ferguson, Missouri. Two police officers were shot while a protest was wrapping up outside the city police headquarters early this morning. They are in serious condition. The shooting came just hours after the city’s police chief quit following last week’s Justice Department report that found widespread racially biased abuses in the city’s policing and municipal court. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said he believed the officers were directly targeted.
CHIEF JON BELMAR: I don’t know who did the shooting, to be honest with you right now, but somehow they were embedded in that group of folks. Now, I would have to make an assumption right now that based on the fact that these officers were standing together, and there were several officers standing right there together when this happened, that, you know, these were shots that were parallel to the ground, not up in the air or not at—they weren’t skip shots. And I would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed exactly at my police officers.
AMY GOODMAN: One officer was shot in the face; the other was hit in the shoulder. Some eyewitnesses disputed the claim the shooter was embedded with the protesters. Activist Deray McKesson tweeted, “The shooter was not with the protestors. The shooter was atop the hill.” Pierre Thomas of ABC News said, “This appears to be a random shooting by someone who just showed up.”
Just hours before the shooting, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles discussed the resignation of Police Chief Thomas Jackson and the Justice Department report.