Officials scrambled to head off renewed anger yesterday after an armed black teenager was shot dead by a white officer in a St Louis suburb, insisting the use of force was justified.
The killing took place late Tuesday at a gas station in Berkeley, near Ferguson, Missouri — ground zero of a new protest movement over police killing of black suspects — and triggered immediate protests.
Nationwide protests were sparked after unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by a white officer in Ferguson, a mainly African American town with a mostly white police force.
After several weeks, demonstrations gained momentum in reaction to several other killings of black suspects by police, including that of Eric Garner, who died in a chokehold in New York last July.
Separate grand juries is St Louis and New York failed to indict officers in either the Brown and Garner cases, sparking allegations the justice system is weighted against black victims of police abuse.
But officials in Ferguson´s neighboring suburb Berkeley said Tuesday´s shooting should not be compared to the previous cases, and said the officer was acting in self-defense.
