20-year-old suspect in Ferguson shooting charged with assault

REUTERS

11 years ago

Two police officers standing guard outside the Ferguson, Missouri, police department were shot early Thursday March, 12, 2015 morning, spurring a manhunt for those responsible and stirring questions about what’s next for protesters who have been a constant presence in the city since Michael Brown’s death in August, 2015. This is a photo collected at the scene from the St. Louis County Police Crime Scene Unit. (CNN)

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar speaks at a press conference at the St. Louis County Police Headquarters in Clayton, Missouri, March 12, 2015, regarding the two police officers who were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department early Thursday morning. (Kate Munsch/Reuters)

Protestors block a police vehicle from entering the City of Ferguson Police Department and Municipal Court parking lot in Ferguson Missouri, March 11, 2015. The police chief of Ferguson, Missouri, resigned on Wednesday, following a scathing U.S. Justice Department report that found widespread racially biased abuses in the city’s police department and municipal court. Protesters had called for Chief Thomas Jackson’s removal since the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white Ferguson police officer on August. 9. The killing triggered nationwide protests and drew scrutiny to police use of deadly force, especially against black men. (Kate Munsch/Reuters)

A 20-year-old suspect in the shooting last week of two police officers during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, has been arrested and charged with first-degree assault and gun violations, prosecutors said on Sunday.

St Louis County District Attorney Robert McCulloch said the suspect, Jeffrey Williams, had admitted his involvement in firing the shots that wounded the two officers.

Williams had earlier participated in the protest rally, the prosecutor said, and he was involved in earlier demonstrations in Ferguson.

The killing of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb last summer set off a nationwide wave of protests over the use of deadly force against minority groups.