Three stores were looted in the fresh disturbances that also saw Molotov cocktails lobbed at police, CNN said, but there were also reports that locals, some armed, had stepped in to stop shops from being ransacked.
Police who have been accused of a heavy handed response retaliated with tear gas, smoke bombs and rubber bullets, but they mostly stayed at a distance in armored vehicles and riot gear.
On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered peacefully near the scene of Brown’s shooting, marking the exact moment he was shot a week ago.
Brown’s death at the hands of an overwhelmingly white police force has renewed a national debate about relations between law enforcement and African Americans.
His family appealed for calm but after police said Friday he was the suspect in a robbery and released CCTV footage of it, the family accused authorities of a “devious” attempt to smear the character of their son, who had no criminal record and was about to start vocational college.
The robbery occurred just minutes before the policeman shot him dead, but muddying the waters, police said the officer stopped Brown for walking in the middle of the street, not for stealing.
Surveillance video showed a young black man carrying cigars out of a convenience store, and pushing another man who appeared to try and stop him.
In Harlem, New York, African American civil rights activist Al Sharpton criticized the video’s release, accusing the police of sullying Brown’s image in the public eye.
“Have we lost our decency when you don’t even let people mourn their loved ones without you trying to smear them with things that have nothing to do with the situation?” he asked.
“Are you telling me that you have the right to run down somebody and kill him over three or four cigars?”
Police identified the officer who shot Brown as Darren Wilson, 28, a white, four-year veteran of the force with no disciplinary record.
Wilson’s home in a mostly white town some 18 miles (30 kilometers) from Ferguson has been under police protection, but neighbors told The Washington Post that the officer got “spooked and took off pretty quickly before the name was announced.”
There have been only tentative signs of the protests spreading to other areas of the United States.
About The Author
