Video released shows Ferguson suspect pulling gun from waistband before he was shot by police
Video released shows Ferguson suspect pulling gun from waistband before he was shot by police
Surveillance video has been released that police say shows Tyrone Harris with a gun – minutes before he allegedly fired at plainclothes officers.
Harris, 18, is currently fighting for his life in hospital after being shot by police in Ferguson on Sunday night during protests to mark the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death.
Footage from the 13-second video, taken from a local insurance company in Ferguson, was released on Tuesday by the St. Louis County Police Department.
Police said it shows Harris grab a handgun out of his waistband once shots are fired on West Florissant Avenue during the protest.
At the start of the video, a crowd is seen standing in front of shops and in a parking lot before they frantically disperse, taking cover behind cars, as shots are fired.
Shortly after, Harris can be seen grabbing a gun from his waistband, police said.
‘The St. Louis County Police Department is releasing surveillance video pertinent to the investigation of the officer involved shooting of Tyrone Harris that occurred on August 9, 2015,’ police wrote in the video description.
‘The surveillance video is from Solo Insurance Services, located at 9197 W. Florissant, St. Louis, MO 63136.
‘Detectives from the Crimes Against Persons Unit have identified the person in the video as Tyrone Harris.
‘The video shows Harris grab a handgun out of his waistband once shots are fired during the protest in the W. Florissant corridor.’
County Police Chief Jon Belmar said that plainclothes officers had been tracking the man, who they believed was armed, during the protests when he spotted them and opened fire.
The officers returned fire from inside the vehicle. They then pursued the man on foot. The chief said the man once again fired on the officers, with all four continuing to fire back.
In an exchange of gunfire the officers wounded the suspect, according to police.
Harris was in critical condition on Monday at a St. Louis hospital. County police and Barnes-Jewish Hospital were unable to provide updates on his condition Tuesday.
Prosecutors charged Harris with four counts of assault on law enforcement, five counts of armed criminal action, and one count of shooting a firearm at a vehicle. His bond was set at $250,000.
Harris’s father said his son did not have a gun.
‘He was running for his … life because someone was shooting at him,’ Tyrone Harris, Sr. said in a telephone interview from his St. Louis-area home before the video was released.
Harris Sr. declined to discuss his son’s shooting on Tuesday.
Activist groups, meanwhile, had said the plainclothes officers who shot Harris should never have been deployed to the scene.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called Sunday’s violence ‘a sad turn of events’ carried out by a criminal element and appealed for peaceful rallies on Monday – the day authorities declared a state of emergency in Ferguson following the violence.
