Police try to control a crowd Wednesday on the lot of a gas station following a shooting Tuesday in Berkeley, Mo. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, David Carson)
By Jennifer Mann and Jesse Bogan
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS)
BERKELEY, Mo. – A Berkeley police officer fired at least three shots at a suspect who pulled a gun on him, the St. Louis County Police chief said at a Wednesday morning news conference.
Police Chief Jon Belmar said the officer was responding to a larceny call at a Mobil on the Run station, just a few miles from Ferguson, about 11:15 p.m. Tuesday when the shooting happened.
The officer saw two people on the parking lot in the 6800 block of North Hanley Road and began talking with them.
Belmar said one of the people approached the driver’s side of the vehicle.
One of the individuals “produced a pistol with his arm straight out, pointing it straight at the officer kind of from across the hood,” Belmar said.
At that point, the chief said, the officer got his service revolver “and fired what we think is three shots.”
The officer, who is 34 and white, is a 6-year veteran of the department, Belmar said. He was placed on investigative leave, which is standard.
Belmar said one round struck the suspect, an 18-year-old black male, and one struck a tire of the police car. Police said they did not immediately know where the third round went.
From the videotape released by St. Louis County Police and Belmar’s description, the officer was near the front driver’s side of the vehicle and the suspect was on the other side, near the car’s headlights, when the shooting occurred. Police had first said the officer was doing a routine business check when the incident happened.
As the officer points his gun, he is backing away and loses his balance, Belmar said. As he fell, he dropped his flashlight and fired off at least three shots.
The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS units. Berkeley police called the county’s crimes against persons unit at 11:45 p.m., and they arrived at the scene at 12:15 a.m., Belmar said.
The body, which was covered and concealed from the crowd by a partition, was removed from the scene at 1:40 a.m., Belmar said.
He also said the 9 mm gun found on the suspect had five rounds in the magazine and one round in the chamber. He also said the gun’s serial number had been filed off.
Belmar declined to release his name at the news conference but said he had a criminal record, with charges including three assaults, armed robbery, armed criminal action and multiple uses of weapons since he was 17.
A woman at the scene overnight, Toni Martin-Green, said it was her son, Antonio Martin, 18.
Police said they did not know who the second person was, but they called him a “person of interest” and asked for the public’s help to find him.
They also said two bystanders on the Mobil parking lot were witnesses.
Belmar said he notified St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch of the shooting, and McCulloch assigned a prosecutor to the case.
Between 200 and 300 protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, and conflicts broke out between officers and protesters, Belmar said.
Four people were arrested for assaulting officers, and at least one officer was injured when he tried to get away from some sort of firework device set off on the parking lot, Belmar said.
Protesters also threw some bricks at officers, Belmar said. Police used pepper spray on the crowd but did not use any tear gas, the chief said.
He also said several police cars were damaged, and some protesters brought bags of rocks to the scene.
As to suggestions that the officer should have used a Taser instead of his gun, Belmar said: “Frankly that’s unreasonable.” The officer also had a body camera issued to him at the start of his shift, but he was not wearing it. The car’s dash-camera was not activated.
The suspect could have complied with the officer, but “bad choices were made” by him instead, Belmar said.
The officer was responding to a call for a larceny, but Belmar could not say if it was from the gas station or whether it involved the suspect and the second man.
Belmar said the officer had one prior use of force incident in 2011 or 2012 that involved a struggle over the officer’s gun.
Antonio Martin’s extended family was in shock early Wednesday, as they waited for details to unfold about the fatal shooting.
“This doesn’t make any sense for them to kill my son line this,” Toni Martin-Green said early Wednesday from her home located near the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. “I am trying to be calm.”
Martin was the oldest of four children born to she and Jerome Green.
“He’s like any other kid who had dreams or hopes,” said Green. “We loved being around him. He’d push a smile out of you.”
Green described his son as a “follower” who took medication for being hyperactive.
“It was hard for him to focus,” Green said.
“He was not a violent person, to our knowledge,” he added. “Around us there weren’t any pistols. It’s hard to believe that.”
His grandmother, Margret Chandler, was also in disbelief.
“When he was around me, he knew to do right,” she said. “Why would he pull out a gun against the police? That’s the thing I don’t get. It just doesn’t add up.”