Eighteen-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr. died at police hands in St. Louis, Missouri, Wednesday night, setting off near-immediate protests at the site of the shooting just days before a national weekend of protest was planned in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson.
Cops say Myers fired a gun. Relatives said he was not holding a gun; only a sandwich. Either way, community members are questioning why the off-duty cop stopped Myers and his friends in the first place, escalating the incident to gunfire. The unnamed officer was working a second job as a security officer when he approached Myers and his friends in his vehicle marked with the company name Hi-Tech security. One of the three black males started to run, prompting the officer to make a U turn. After he did so, all three men began to run, prompting the officer to chase them. He said one of them was holding up his pants in a way that suggested he had a gun, according to CNN.
Continue reading: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/10/09/3577923/why-did-an-off-duty-st-louis-cop-kill-a-black-teen-last-night/
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