Two police officers were shot and seriously wounded early Thursday near the police headquarters in Ferguson, Missouri. The incident occurred during the ongoing protest in the city.
The Ferguson police chief announced his resignation from his post just hours earlier, a decision that followed the blistering report from the US Department of Justice. The Federal investigators said last week that they had verified that the city's police force and court system were racially biased and rather predatory.
The demonstrators had gathered near the Ferguson police headquarters when chief of police Thomas Jackson announced that he would be resigning next week.
According to Washington Post, the shooting occurred after midnight as the protests in the area were being held and that the demonstration was relatively quiet and peaceful after many had left, said the police.
Chief of St. Louis County police Jon Belmar said during a news conference on Thursday morning that the shooting was an ambush. Adding that one of the officers were shot in the face and was in serious condition after the shooting, but the injuries were not life-threatening. It was fortunate that the officers who were shot do not have any long-term injuries, he said.
Three or four shots were fired from across the street from where more or less 75 protesters and 40 police officers were gathered, Belmar said. However, he said that the shots did not come from the crowd of protesters gathered near the headquarters.
Belmar said that the officers were just standing when they were shot. "Just because they were police officers," he added.
Markus Loehrer, one of the locals who said he was near the crowd of protesters in Ferguson, told CNN that it took him 30 seconds to realize that there was an officer who was shot down. "The protesters were not there to shoot cops... We just began to run."
Loehrer said that the shooting outside Ferguson police headquarters worried him as for the reason that the officials might use the incident as an excuse to use force.
He said: "I think they will take this as an opportunity to strike back."