Protests in St. Louis after police kill black teen

An 18-year-old black man was shot by a police officer at a gas station near Ferguson, Missouri, late Tuesday night. St. Louis County police said in a statement that as an officer approached two men, one "pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer."

"Fearing for his life, the Berkeley officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him," police spokesman Brian Schellman told the press. A second suspect fled and has not been apprehended, Schellman added.

The police did not confirm the identity of the deceased, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named him as 18-year-old Antonio Martin, citing his mother, who was also at the scene. Toni Martin told the newspaper that her son was with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting. Local media also reported that 60 people gathered at the gas station, confronted the dozen police officers, shouting and waving their hands.

Protestors gathered at the scene Wednesday morning, wearing yellow police tape around their necks and heads, taunting and yelling at the police.

Berkeley is directly next to the St. Louis suburb Ferguson, where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by officer Darren Wilson in August. A decision by a grand jury not to indict Wilson, as well as another police officer responsible for the chokehold death of African American Eric Garner in New York City, has spawned protests across the United States against racial profiling and brutality on the part of local police officers.

es/mg (AP, AFP, Reuters)