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The shooting comes five months after a white police officer
shot dead an unarmed black teenager in a suburb of the city --
one of a number of racially-charged cases that have prompted
protests about police tactics across the United States.
Officers were tailing the car, which was reported stolen in
December, when it struck a wall and the engine stopped, St.
Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told reporters.
The 19-year-old passenger was carrying a Tec 9 handgun when he
got out of the car to flee, and officers ordered him to drop the
weapon, Dotson said. Both officers opened fire when he did not,
fatally wounding him, he added.
One of the officers involved in Wednesday's shooting was white
and the other black, Dotson said at a press conference broadcast
online. The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the shot
teenager was African-American.
The teenager died in hospital, Dotson said. The driver of the
car, who the Post-Dispatch said was also black, was taken into
police custody.
The St. Louis area has been racked with tension following the
shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white
police officer Darren Wilson in August in the suburb of
Ferguson.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Justice
Department would soon close its investigation into Brown's death
and clear Wilson of any civil rights charges.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco)
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