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 A group of protesters marched onto Interstate 170 in the city of
Berkeley, Missouri, around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, blocking traffic for
roughly 45 minutes. The demonstration followed a vigil at the Mobil
On The Run gas station where the shooting occurred.
The site was just a few miles from the Ferguson street where a white
police officer shot dead 18-year-old Michael Brown in August,
fuelling weeks of protest in the region and across the country.
Demonstrations that drew as many as 150 people were largely peaceful
throughout the night, but at one point officers disrupted an attempt
by several people to break into a beauty supply shop.
At least two people were taken into police custody. Authorities were
unable to provide further details.
 Black public officials in Missouri were at pains on Wednesday to
distinguish the death of the suspect, whom they noted was holding a
gun, from cases of unarmed black men who had been killed by police
officers. The latter incidents have led to protests across the
United States and bitter debate about how U.S. police forces treat
non-white citizens.
"This is not a policeman in the city of Berkeley going out
half-cocked," Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said at a news
conference. "You could not even compare this with Ferguson."
Shortly after the shooting on Tuesday night, a crowd of up to 300
people gathered at the scene, where bricks and three fireworks were
thrown, two of them at the roughly 50 officers at the scene, St.
Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said.
Two officers were injured and four people were arrested for assault,
Belmar said.
The shooting occurred three days after a man summarily shot dead two
officers in their patrol car in New York City, targeting them only
because of the uniform they were wearing.
POLICE RELEASE VIDEO
The Berkeley encounter unfolded after the officer, a six-year
veteran of the town's police department who was responding to a
report of a theft, got out of his car to talk to two men at the
gasoline station.
One of them pointed a loaded 9mm handgun at the officer, Belmar
said. Police released an indistinct, distant surveillance video from
the gas station, edited to end just before the shooting.
In the corner of the frame, one of the people at the station can be
seen raising one or both arms in what might be a shooter's stance
near the police car, although the footage is too dark and grainy to
establish that the person is holding a gun.
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Two other videos released later by St. Louis County Police were
similarly ambiguous, recorded by security cameras that appear to
have only restricted views of the scene.
The officer fired three shots, Belmar said, a sequence captured on
one of the three videos. One bullet struck the man with the gun,
whom paramedics declared dead at the scene, he said.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper named him as 18-year-old
Antonio Martin.
Police said they found a handgun with a defaced serial number at the
scene.
The officer, who was not identified and was put on administrative
leave, had been given a body camera in a pilot program but was not
wearing it at the time of the shooting. The dashboard camera on the
officer's car was also off.
Protests in Ferguson have taken place for months and spilled over
into violence when a grand jury decided a month ago not to charge
the police officer who shot Brown.
Demonstrations in cities across the country gained in momentum when
a New York grand jury decided not to indict a police officer over
the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man who died in July
when police tackled him and put him in a choke hold.
(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington, Eric M. Johnson
in Seattle, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Curtis
Skinner; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
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