ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Police Chief Sam Dotson, along with clergy members, asked for peace and calm in the city after a police shooting in the Fountain Park neighborhood.
Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, of Spanish Lake was shot Wednesday as officers served a search warrant at a home there, police said. He ran out of the residence and pointed a gun at officers, authorities said. Two officers fired, killing Ball-Bey.
Police and protesters faced off Wednesday night, with tear gas used by police. A building, a car and debris were set on fire. A shop was looted. At least nine people were arrested on charges of impeding traffic and resisting arrest.
The scene unfolded less than two weeks after violence marred the anniversary of the day Michael Brown was fatally wounded by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson. His death set in motion the national Black Lives Matter movement.
At a Thursday afternoon news conference, city officials and clergy began with a prayer before Slay and Dotson spoke. Slay said he was here "to call for peace, to call for an end of violence" in the city.
Slay said Fountain Park has been an area of violence for the past few weeks. He said residents in the area deserve peace.
He called the death of the young man who was shot by police a "tragedy" but said "it's not easy" for police members who have "difficult" jobs.
"[Peace] is not going to happen unless we all work together as a community," Slay said. "The wider community supports the protest goals, but we have to be mindful of the fact that criminals use a peaceful cover for their criminal activity."
He said his thoughts were with Ball-Bey's family but also with "the police officers who were caused to have to respond and be in a position to have to shoot the young man," Slay said. Officers, he said, "are in our neighborhoods every day trying to bring peace in our community."
Dotson denounced those who broke windows of shops, stole from a corner market and lit fires Wednesday. He said police didn't want to use tear gas, but crowd-control tactics were justified because officers were being hit with bottles and bricks from protesters. He called for patience during the investigation.
"We are open and transparent. We have some of the most progressive policies in the country [to address officer-involved shootings]," Dotson said. "Police work is difficult."
Dotson said he wanted the community to come together lawfully. He asked people in the community to not stand for looting and burning.
"I join everyone here praying for peace and calm tonight," Dotson said.
Activists vowed to continue their efforts.
"We have a right to live in freedom and specifically free from fear," said Montague Simmons, executive director of the Organization for Black Struggle. "This can't go unchecked. We're going to stay in the street. No matter what [police] put forward, we are not going to stop."
Slay and Dotson spoke Thursday afternoon with the Clergy Coalition at West Side Missionary Baptist Church, not far from Wednesday's shooting.
Dotson said the plans for Thursday night would be affected by how people react on the street. He said police officers were "assaulted" Wednesday night in an environment that was "out of control." He said police responded the way they did because people were breaking the law.
"Our goal was to keep people safe," Dotson said. "Last night, no police were injured and no protesters were injured."
The scene of Wednesday's shooting is a historically high-crime area that has seen an uptick in violence, with 127 confirmed homicides this year. There were 159 homicides in all of 2014 and 120 the year before that.
A 30-year-old man was shot and killed there Monday. Last month, a man was charged with felony child endangerment after his 3-year-old nephew accidentally shot himself in the head after finding a loaded gun under a pillow in a bedroom. A market next to Wednesday's shooting was riddled with bullets this week and ransacked hours after Ball-Bey's death, and thieves made off with cellphones, cigarettes, food and medicine.
"Right now, you see a police officer and your first instinct is to run," said Fred Price, 33, who lives near the shooting scene. "They don't want to get shot by the police. Something like this wants to make us want to keep the police out of the neighborhood."
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and by Jim Suhr and Jim Salter of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/21/2015