White Police Officer in St. Louis Shoots Off-Duty Black Colleague
By CHRISTINE HAUSERJUNE 26, 2017
A white police officer shot and wounded an off-duty black officer who had been trying to help with an arrest in St. Louis last week, a “friendly fire” shooting
that again drew national attention to the role race plays in decisions by law enforcement officials to open fire.
Two months later, protesters marched again in St. Louis over the death of another young black man, Vonderrit D. Myers Jr., 18, who was shot after what the
authorities called a “physical altercation” with an off-duty St. Louis officer who was patrolling the city’s Shaw neighborhood for a security firm.
In August 2015, tensions flared after the police said an officer shot an 18-year-old St. Louis
man, Mansur Ball-Bey, after a foot chase by two white officers after he pointed a gun at them.
In August 2014, a white officer from the Ferguson Police Department fatally shot
Michael Brown, who was 18 and black, in a northern suburb of St. Louis.
But another officer who had just arrived, a 36-year-old white man with more than eight years of service, did not recognize the black officer.
The shooting has revived questions about the effects of police training
and race on communities, especially in the St. Louis area, where police killings of black people in recent years have had national consequences.
The shooting took place around 10 p.m. on June 21 when officers tried to stop a car
that had been reported stolen, Lawrence O’Toole, the interim police chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, said in a statement.