Killing of black teen rekindles agitation

Toni Martin-Green cries out Wednesday as she talks to police at the scene where her son, Antonio Martin, was fatally shot Tuesday at a gas station in Berkeley, Mo.
Toni Martin-Green cries out Wednesday as she talks to police at the scene where her son, Antonio Martin, was fatally shot Tuesday at a gas station in Berkeley, Mo.

BERKELEY, Mo. -- The mayor of the St. Louis suburb of Berkeley called for calm Wednesday after a white police officer killed a black 18-year-old who police said pointed a gun at the officer.

photo

AP

Police try to control a crowd Wednesday on the lot of a gas station after a shooting Tuesday in Berkeley, Mo., where police say a man who pulled a gun and pointed it at an officer was killed.

The shooting reignited tensions that have lingered since the death of Michael Brown in neighboring Ferguson.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the officer was questioning two men late Tuesday about a theft at a Berkeley convenience store when one of them -- later identified as Antonio Martin -- pulled a 9mm handgun on the officer.

The officer stumbled backward but fired three shots, one of which struck Martin, Belmar said. No shots came from Martin's loaded gun, the chief said.

Martin, who was known to local police officers and had been arrested several times, died at the scene, Belmar said. He declined to specify where the fatal bullet hit Martin.

Berkeley is near Ferguson, Mo., where white police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old, on Aug. 9, sparking weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations. A grand jury's decision last month not to charge Wilson in the shooting spurred a nationwide protest.

The 34-year-old, white Berkeley officer, a six-year veteran of the police force, is on administrative leave pending an investigation, Belmar said. St. Louis County police and the city are investigating, Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said at a news conference.

"He will carry the weight of this for the rest of his life, certainly for the rest of his career," Belmar said of the officer, whose name was not immediately released. "There are no winners here."

The officer wasn't wearing his body camera, and his police cruiser's dashboard camera was not activated because the car's emergency lights were not on, Belmar said.

Hoskins said he was "not concerned" that the officer was not wearing the body camera. He said the department recently acquired a limited number of the devices and training on their use is still underway.

"It would have been helpful," the mayor said, "and in the future, when we get well-trained, there will be a severe penalty for any officer that does not turn it on."

Police do have a surveillance video from the parking lot outside the store. A nearly two-minute clip that was released Wednesday shows two young men leaving the store as a patrol car rolls up. The officer then gets out and speaks with them.

About 90 seconds later, the video appears to show one of the young men raising his arm, though what he is holding is difficult to see because the men were several feet from the camera.

Belmar said it was a 9mm handgun -- loaded with one round in the chamber and five more in the magazine. Police recovered the gun at the scene of the shooting.

Officers were searching Wednesday for the other man, who fled on foot.

Martin's relatives said Wednesday that they were in shock.

"This doesn't make any sense for them to kill my son like this," Toni Martin-Green said. "I am trying to be calm."

Martin's parents acknowledged that their son had been arrested and had "stumbled in the past," but his father, Jerome Green, said Martin "was not a violent person, to our knowledge."

"Around us there weren't any pistols," he added. "It's hard to believe that."

Tuesday's gunfire was the third fatal shooting of a black suspect by a white police officer in the St. Louis area since Brown was killed. Kajieme Powell, 25, was killed Aug. 19 after approaching St. Louis officers with a knife. Vonderrit Myers, 18, was fatally shot Oct. 8 after purportedly shooting at a St. Louis officer.

Each shooting has been met by protests, and a crowd quickly gathered late Tuesday in Berkeley. The demonstration involving about 300 people turned violent.

More than 50 police officers, some in riot gear, responded. Video showed some wrestling with protesters.

Belmar, who was criticized for his department's response to protests after Brown's shooting, said officers used pepper spray but not tear gas Tuesday night. Four people were arrested on charges of assaulting officers.

Belmar said three explosive devices, perhaps fireworks, were tossed near gas pumps, and some protesters threw rocks and bricks. One officer hit by a brick was treated for facial cuts, and another was treated for a leg injury that he suffered as he retreated from an explosive.

Tough questions

Hoskins' news conference Wednesday was interrupted by a pointed exchange with Jason Keith Coleman, a black Baptist minister who insisted that the shooting was the latest example of deadly aggression by "trigger-happy" police toward blacks.

"Call it what it is -- a police officer has killed another black man, and this has got to stop," Coleman shouted at the mayor.

"Everybody don't die the same," Hoskins countered. "Some people die because they initiate it, and at this point, our review suggests police did not initiate it."

Belmar said Martin had a criminal record that included three assault charges and others for armed robbery, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

Some protesters questioned why the officer couldn't use pepper spray or a stun gun.

"I understand police officers have a job and have an obligation to go home to their families at the end of the night," said 36-year-old Orlando Brown, one of the protesters. "But do you have to treat every situation with lethal force? ... It's not a racial issue, or black or white. It's wrong or right."

Orlando Brown said he was pepper-sprayed during the protest and that his friend was among those arrested.

Belmar said the surveillance video appeared to show that the officer was in immediate danger.

"You have somebody that's pointing a gun at a police officer," Belmar said. "There's not a lot of time. I can imagine that most of us would feel that we're in imminent danger of losing our lives."

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said Wednesday that the shooting should serve as "a reminder that law-enforcement officers have a difficult, and often dangerous, job in protecting themselves and law-abiding citizens."

Berkeley is a north St. Louis suburb of 9,100, and 82 percent of its population is black. Like nearby Ferguson, about one in four of its residents lives in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Median household income is $35,000, about 75 percent of the Missouri average.

Berkeley reported two cases of murder and non-negligent homicide in 2013, according to the Missouri Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Among the 1,112 offenses recorded, 55 percent were traffic-related. Blacks made up 86 percent of those arrested.

Hoskins said Wednesday that it is unfair for protesters to compare the Berkeley shooting TO the Michael Brown case.

Ferguson was criticized for having only three black officers on its 53-member force. Seventeen or 18 of Berkeley's 31 officers are black, as are the police chief and the city's top elected officials, said Hoskins, who also is black.

"Our police officers are more sensitive, and it's because of the black and white relationship that they interact," he said. "That's why I believe we're different than the city of Ferguson."

Hoskins also noted that there was video of the fatal encounter in Berkeley, unlike the shooting in Ferguson.

Since Michael Brown's shooting, protests have been almost daily occurrences around St. Louis. The demonstrations, which later spread across the country, have focused on the use of force by police officers against black men.

Looting and arson followed the grand jury's decision in the Ferguson case. State budget director Linda Luebbering on Wednesday said the cost of security in Ferguson and the St. Louis area after Michael Brown's shooting is estimated at more than $12.5 million.

In addition, thousands have rallied in New York, Washington and other cities since the Dec. 3 decision in the case of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six whose death while being held in a police chokehold on Staten Island was recorded on video.

On Tuesday night, demonstrators marched along Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, protesting heavy-handed police tactics. Mayor Bill de Blasio had called for a temporary halt to such protests after two officers were shot Saturday in Brooklyn by a man authorities said had alluded to the Brown and Garner cases on social media and attended a New York protest.

Information for this article was contributed by Jim Suhr, Jim Salter and staff members of The Associated Press; by Toluse Olorunnipa and Tim Jones of Bloomberg News; by Mitch Smith of The New York Times; and by Jesse Bogan, Christine Byers and Stephen Deere of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A Section on 12/25/2014

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