St Louis policeman kills 18-year-old, reviving Ferguson tensions

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The Police department claim the suspect opened fire after being ordered to stop but multiple witnesses say he was only carrying a sandwich. Victim was stopped for a “pedestrian check”.

The Guardian reports:- “A St Louis city policeman shot and killed a young male suspect on Wednesday, authorities said, bringing new tension as protests continue over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in August.

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The officer had attempted to stop the fleeing suspect, the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department said on Twitter. During the chase on foot the suspect turned and fired at the officer, who returned fire and fatally wounded him, the force said.

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The officer was not hurt and a gun was recovered from the scene, police said.

Some accounts of the case said the young man, named locally as Vonderrick Myers Jr, 18, had only been carrying a sandwich. Teyonna Myers, 23, of Florissant, said Myers was her cousin. “He was unarmed,” she told the St Louis Post-Dispatch. “He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It’s like Michael Brown all over again.”

Police spokeswoman Leah Freeman told CNN said the officer had been off-duty and working an approved second job when he attempted to stop Myers for a “pedestrian check”. He had been wearing his police uniform.

The Post-Dispatch reported that dozens of protesters assembled at the scene afterwards in south St Louis, within miles of the city of Ferguson, which has been racked by near-nightly protests following the fatal 9 August shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson.”