US: A largely peaceful rally in St Louis turned rowdy on Sunday as a handful of demonstrators protesting at the acquittal of a white police officer over the fatal shooting of a black man in 2011 threw bottles in response to police making arrests.
Hundreds of people gathered for the third night in a row in the Missouri city of almost 320,000 people.
Violence erupted the previous two nights, evoking memories of the riots following the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.
More than 80 people were arrested as police in riot gear used pepper spray and arrested the demonstrators who had defied orders to disperse following a larger, peaceful protest.
At a late-night news conference, Mayor Lyda Krewson noted that “the vast majority of protesters are non-violent,” and blamed the trouble on “a group of agitators.”
Sunday’s event began peacefully, just like the previous two nights.
Then a police officer was making two arrests a block away from police headquarters, leading some to rush toward the officer, who then jumped in his car and reversed quickly through the crowd to get away, according to journalists.
Nobody was injured, but the crowd started confronting a police line, and some people threw bottles.
The St Louis police department said it had received reports of “significant property damage” on Sunday night and had ordered crowds to disperse in the area of Tucker and Pine.
Jason Stockley, the officer who shot dead Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011, has told a city newspaper he was “just not the guy” to blame.
During demonstrations on Friday night, police said 32 people were arrested and 10 officers injured.
Late on Saturday in the Delmar Loop area of University City, a suburb about 10 miles west of downtown St Louis known for concert venues and night life, a group of demonstrators refused to disperse, broke windows and threw objects at police. Officers moved in with riot gear and armoured vehicles and the disturbances resulted in several arrests.
In a Facebook post early on Sunday, Missouri governor Eric Greitens wrote: “Saturday night, some criminals decided to pick up rocks and break windows. They thought they’d get away with it. They were wrong. Our officers caught ’em, cuffed ’em, and threw ’em in jail.
“In the past, our leaders let people break windows, loot, start fires.
They let them do it. Not this time.
Tonight, the police arrested the vandals. At this moment, they’re all sitting in a jail cell. They’re gonna wake up and face felony charges.”- AFP
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