Witnesses: Ferguson Gunshots Came From Hilltop Across Street From Protests

A protester yells at police outside the Ferguson Police Department, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. Earlier in the day, the resignation of Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson was announced in the wake of... A protester yells at police outside the Ferguson Police Department, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. Earlier in the day, the resignation of Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson was announced in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report prompted by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) MORE LESS
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Witnesses said Thursday that the shots that struck two police officers doing crowd control at a protest outside the Ferguson, Mo. police department didn’t come from demonstrators.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in a news conference that the gunfire came from an area across the street and to the northwest of the department building. When a reporter asked him to confirm that the shots didn’t come from protesters, Belmar responded that while he couldn’t say who carried out the shooting he thought the perpetrator was “somehow embedded in that group of folks.”

But witnesses who spoke to local and national news outlets said they saw the shots come from a nearby hilltop.

Freelance photographer Bradley J. Rayford told the New York Times that he was standing near the officers when he “heard the bullets go past my head.” He told the newspaper that he saw muzzle fire from the direction of a hill across from the police station.

Witnesses told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the shots appeared to come from a block of homes on Tiffin Avenue, which intersects South Florissant Road where the Ferguson Police Department is located.

The Los Angeles Times also reported that several witnesses said the shots came from a hill past where protesters gathered at the police station.

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  1. If you listen to the NBC raw video footage, the shots were fired after what appears to be a car horn honking. Some witnesses stated that the gunshots appeared to have been fired from a distance of at least approximately 220 feet,away from the protesters, yet the St. Louis County County Police Chief, Jon Belmar insisted that the shooting was due to someone “embedded” with the protesters. It’s time for Main Justice to really get to the bottom of this situation.

    I

  2. Indeed!

    As it is the situation is ripe for frustrated individuals OR agent provocateurs. A “good ol boy” playing sniper could set off a massacre.

    I’m not saying it happened here, but my own father-in-law was a member of Chicago’s Red Squad. He still brags about infiltrating peaceful protests and initiating violence to discredit the marchers (as well as framing black panthers and “commies”)

  3. Avatar for tao tao says:

    Nobody knows what the hell happened here yet, outside of the FUX Newsclowns.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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