Police and protesters clash in St. Louis after former officer who shot black driver acquitted on murder charges

Demonstrators clashed with police officers Friday night in St. Louis after the acquittal of a white former police officer who was charged with murder last year for fatally shooting a black driver[, Anthony Lamar Smith,] after a car chase.

In a video tweeted after midnight Saturday, St. Louis police Chief Lawrence O’Toole said at least 23 people had been arrested as of 6 p.m., and 10 police officers had suffered injuries, including a broken jaw and a dislocated shoulder.

“Many of the demonstrators were peaceful. However, after dark, many agitators began to destroy property and assault police officers,” O’Toole said in a joint video statement with Mayor Lyda Krewson (D).

O’Toole said the protesters assaulted police with bricks and bottles, and officers responded by using tear gas and firing pepper-spray balls as a “less lethal option.”

Roughly 1,000 protesters descended on the mayor’s home, throwing rocks and breaking windows, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They were met by about 200 police in riot gear who tried to disperse them with tear gas.

In a court document submitted by the St. Louis circuit attorney, the investigator on the case said Stockley and another officer had been chasing Smith at speeds up to 80 mph when Stockley said he was “going to kill this motherf‑‑‑er, don’t you know it” and told the officer to drive into Smith’s slowing car.

The document said Stockley then approached Smith’s window and fired five times into the car, hitting Smith “with each shot” and killing him. In addition, prosecutors accused the officer of planting a gun on the victim: There was a gun found in Smith’s car, but it was later determined to have DNA only from Stockley.

Judge Timothy Wilson, the circuit judge who heard the case in a bench trial, acquitted Stockley on the murder charge as well as a charge of armed criminal action …

wrote that he was “simply not firmly convinced” of Stockley’s guilt, saying that “agonizingly,” he went over the case’s evidence repeatedly. Ultimately, Wilson said, he was not convinced that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Stockley “did not act in self-defense.”

Following the verdict, Smith’s mother, Annie, said the judge made the wrong decision.

“Justice wasn’t served. I can never be at peace,” she told Fox2Now.

In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stockley, 36, who relocated to Houston, acknowledged the hurt Smith’s family is feeling. “I know everyone wants someone to blame,” he told the newspaper, “but I’m just not the guy.”

When asked why he agreed to address the case, tears filled his eyes. “Because I did nothing wrong,” he said. “If you’re telling the truth and you’ve been wrongly accused, you should shout it from the rooftops.”

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who had put the state’s National Guard on standby ahead of the verdict and potential protests, chastised those who engaged in violence, saying it “is not going to be tolerated here in the state of Missouri.”

Before the verdict was announced, Greitens stood with Christina Wilson, Smith’s fiancee, to deliver a joint message asking people to protest peacefully.

“If you feel like you want to speak out, speak how you feel,” Wilson said at the news briefing. “And whatever comes to you, just do it in a peaceful way.”

Before the verdict, activists in the St. Louis region pledged “mass disruption” should Stockley wind up getting acquitted, vowing the outcome would “look a lot like Ferguson.”

Demonstrators began gathering in the streets after the acquittal Friday, growing in size as the day wore on.

Mackenzie Marks washes out her eyes after being pepper-sprayed. “They boxed us in and started pepper-spraying us,” Marks said.

In his order acquitting Stockley on Friday, Wilson said he did not believe evidence supported the prosecution’s argument that the officer planted the gun.

Wilson said that he did not believe Stockley’s actions after the pursuit were “consistent with the conduct of a person intentionally killing another person unlawfully,” noting that Stockley did not immediately open fire when approaching Smith’s car and adding that the officer had been told Smith had a gun.

“No one promised a rose garden, and this surely is not one,” Wilson wrote.

Wilson also discussed Stockley’s comment about killing Smith, saying that the pursuit was stressful for the officers involved, noting that “people say all kinds of things in the heat of the moment or while in stressful situations.”

“This not guilty verdict of a police officer who violently killed a citizen is another slap in the face to the black community in St. Louis. And a shot in the heart to the family of the victim,” Missouri State Rep. Michael Butler (D-St. Louis) said in a statement issued Friday morning, adding that the verdict has left him “appalled.”

“This system and all the politicians calling for peace are ignoring the pain this verdict causes our communities. Anthony Lamar Smith is dead from a violent act and you want us to be peaceful? You want us to not feel anger? The very people paid to protect us are killing us, paid to make peace are perpetuating violence, and we are supposed to be peaceful?” he wrote. “We will be nonviolent but we will not settle on peace. No justice. No peace.”

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