Jennings, MO – Officers Kills Black Armed Suspect In St. Louis Suburb, Police Say

Jennings, MO – St. Louis County police shot dead a man who they said pointed a rifle at them after a short foot chase about two miles from an apartment complex where a white Ferguson officer killed an unarmed black teen in August, sparking protests.

The county police officers, who are assigned to Jennings, Missouri, have been placed on administrative leave following the late Wednesday shooting, St. Louis County Police Sergeant Brian Schellman said.

He said the officers are white and the suspect black. He did not identify them.

Police recovered a loaded rifle, he said.

The suspect is believed to have been known to a woman who had called county police to a residence in Jennings earlier on Wednesday night reporting a man knocking on her door with what she described as a sawed-off shotgun, Schellman said.

The man left before police arrived and they took a report, he said, and the incident is being looked at as a possible domestic dispute.

Later on Wednesday, police were called back to the residence and the caller said the man did not appear armed and had gotten into a black vehicle, Schellman said.

The officers responding saw a black vehicle approaching and got out of their cars to contact the driver, Schellman said.

They saw the vehicle accelerate toward them and jumped out of the way, Schellman said. The vehicle struck one police car and then crashed into the second, he said.

The man got out of the vehicle carrying a long gun and ran behind some town homes, pursued by the officers on foot, Schellman said. When the officers reached the back of the town homes they saw he had made his way behind construction equipment, he said.

“He was then facing the officers as they came down a small hill with the long gun pointed directly at them,” Schellman told reporters near the scene.

The two officers then fired, killing him, he said.

Weeks of demonstrations have followed the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. Brown’s family, protesters and civil rights leaders have demanded that Wilson be charged with a crime and that the St. Louis County prosecutor be replaced with a special prosecutor.

Brown’s shooting is under investigation by a St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Justice Department. No charges have been filed.