Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
POLICE IN THE United States have released CCTV footage they say shows the 18-year-old black suspect who was critically wounded after being shot by police in Ferguson minutes before he fired a gun at plainclothes officers.
Tyrone Harris Jr was shot late on Sunday after police say he opened fire on an unmarked police van. The shooting happened as protesters nearby were marking the anniversary of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s police shooting death.
Police on Tuesday released a 13-second clip of security camera footage from a West Florissant Avenue insurance office. They said it shows him grabbing a handgun from his waistband after gunshots ring out.
Police have said as many as six people who were part of two feuding groups unrelated to the protest were firing the shots. During the gunfire, Harris apparently spotted plainclothes officers arriving in the unmarked van and fired at them, authorities have said.
Harris was in critical condition yesterday at a St Louis hospital. County police and Barnes-Jewish Hospital were unable to provide updates on his condition Tuesday.
Harris’ father disputed the police account Monday but declined to discuss his son’s shooting Tuesday. Tyrone Harris Jr. has been charged with 10 felonies — five counts of armed criminal action, four counts of first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer and a firearms charge.
Meanwhile, a police officer who killed an unarmed college football player during a suspected burglary at a Texas car dealership was fired for making mistakes that the city’s police chief said caused a deadly confrontation that put him and other officers in danger.
Arlington officer Brad Miller (49) could also face criminal charges once police complete their investigation, Police Chief Will Johnson said.
Called to the scene of a suspected burglary early Friday morning, Miller pursued 19-year-old Christian Taylor through the broken glass doors of a car dealership showroom without telling his supervising officer, Johnson said.
Instead of helping to set up a perimeter around the showroom, Miller confronted Taylor and ordered him to get down on the ground, Johnson said. Taylor did not comply.Instead, he began “actively advancing toward Officer Miller,” Johnson said.
Don’t see the issue here. Man has gun. man fires gun. man fires gun at police. police return fire to defend themselves. man caught on camera firing gun and holding gun. police shoot man to prevent man from shooting them or someone else. gun man shot. wait a second. Is he black. wait hang on!? THATS RACISM! FREE THAT MAN AT ONCE. haha.
I agree, I’m just wondering what all the people in the video were running from.
if he was white, or was shot by a black cop nobody would care. Meanwhile…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/11/ryan-bolinger-des-moines-police_n_7560874.html
Wasn’t there a white (Irish) police officer shot by a black man while in holiday in America recently?
Is that a 55″ Plasma TV in the back of the truck ;-)
….cue media friendly picture of (much younger) Tyrone Harris Jr smiling benignly at camera.
and he loves his Mom and pets too.
Please stop calling them protesters.They are a bunch of opportunistic thugs celebrating the death of another opportunistic thug.
That young fella like most shot (and I repeat most because there are minority cases) in the US are gangbanger punks and nothing more. Oh their family says they are innocent, of course they would. They are no better than the thug families that have run amock in Limerick and Dublin down the years.
one can sympathise with police officers having to deal with a population who carry concealed weapons and take potshots at you. I know I woukd be jumpy. in that kind of environment it is easy to see how mistakes can hagiography and innocent people lose their lives.
hagiography = happen! autocorrect fail!!
I had to google hagiography to find out what it meant – you learn a new thing every day, cheers :0)
Well maybe kind of right. Hagiogrify hmm, make a saint or hero out of some kinda of anti hero, a gangster fighting for respec?
I was thinking the same. There’s been plenty of it going around!
if you go into public spaces with a gun, there can be no argument as to the concrquences of your actions. the police can not wait to see if a person with a gun is going to shoot someone first. all this negative publicity is going to end up with innocent people or officers killed because they are afraid to draw their weapon.
what about people with open carry permits?
depends on if you draw your weapon, them concrquences will be dealt with. no point in bringing silly arguments into the story now us there..
People are running away from something before he produces his gun
oh that’s OK then…. how silly of us to think a teenager shooting a weapon in a crowded area was doing wrong..
I never said he wasn’t wrong. he’s dead wrong. I’m just wondering what everybody including him are reacting to in the first place
Statistics have shown that young black Americans commit more crime than anyone else in the us. They love to use the whole race argument. Hold on I get my violin out….
Stats don’t lie!
No doubt they’ll be all out screaming police brutality again. Looks like this guy got what he deservered.
Clip is a total game changer. Guy approached police with a gun and he got shot. Black or white is no longer a factor and never truly was in the first place.
It’s just a banana you bloody racists. Oh wait, is banana racist?
In Ferguson the protesters had the Bloods and the Crypts arrange a ceasefire.
If the protesters had sense they would have had the two gangs meet in a building and demolished it on top of them.
Gang culture is destroying and killing Black America.
When cops are in an area where gun crime is rampant, gang killings are frequent, daily in many places, then they are going to constantly be on watch.
what do you expect? you steal a gun and wave it around
idiot
White-haters always refer to white people as ‘racists’ when projecting their own racism. Time for all to call them out on this viscious racism in disguise.
I agree that the evidence suggests that he is guilty, so should be charged so let justice take its course, with the caveat of perceived racist attitudes in the area. However, apart from the inherent racism in the southern States, it is also a result of the while gun culture. Last year when I was in Georgia, it was possible for a US friend to purchase a handgun, with no questions asked, and then for me to carry it around. Not necessarily legal, but as I was an adult, I would just get a “telling off” if stopped by police.
Sorry if I don’t jump at the opportunity to believe the same police force that lied about every single factor in Mike Brown’s death, up to and after the point where they were proven wrong.
So he was shot because he had a gun, fair enough. What about the three white guys (not cops) who turned up with assault rifles and body armour last night. Police never even asked them for ID or to see their gun permits. In fact, the police decided to leave the area, abandoning the peacefully protesting black people with three heavily armed members of the “Oath Takers” or “Oath Carriers” or some silly name like that, an unashamedly racist group.
But sure, let’s all harp on about the fact that if black people were just nicer to cops or less threatening they wouldn’t be shot. Because assault rifles and body armour is less threatening than a disabled black man with a stick, or a 12year old in a bikini, but only if you’re white.
That’s some absolute scutter you’re spewing there!
I don’t know whether he was armed or not, but the question is, How can anyone be expected to believe what the Ferguson PD are saying ?
There are none so blind as those that will not see.
have your say