Around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, shots rang out near the corner of Shaw and Klemm on the southside of St. Louis. The narrative sounds like a broken record for residents of the Bi-State area: white cop stops black teen for seemingly no reason at all, and somehow black teen ends up dead.
But was this particular incident justified? Three young men around the age of 18 were walking through the neighborhood when an off-duty officer patrolling the area for a private security detail stopped them. It’s not known why the officer stopped them, but he claims to have seen one of them grabbing his waistband as the teens ran from him.
He gave chase. The officer lost track of them at some point but then spotted one of the teens, later identified as 18-year-old Vonderrit Meyers Jr., near some bushes across the street. The officer and Meyers got into a scuffle, but the suspect broke away and fled into a nearby gangway. The officer gave chase, but Meyers opened fire on him, so he returned fire, shooting 18 times.
A 9mm Ruger pistol was recovered from the scene, and police say the victim was “no stranger to law enforcement.” Because of the volatile situation in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting and protests in the suburbs to the north, community members amassed an impromptu demonstration near the crime scene.
At its peak, some 300 people demonstrated in the neighborhoods around the crime scene, which is usually a quiet area near that city’s botanical gardens. Police cars were damaged and shots were fired, prompting police to close off major thoroughfares and deploy tactical equipment in the vicinity.
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