Four police officers were shot in downtown St. Louis during the George Floyd protests that turned violent.
The shooting happened near St. Louis police headquarters on Monday night. Police Chief John Hayden said that all of the officers who were shot suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to KMOV 4, the local CBS affiliate.
“They were standing near a line and all of a sudden they felt pain. They were just standing there. So some coward fired shots at officers and now we have four in the hospital … and thank God they’re alive,” Hayden said. “Can we make some sense out of this? … This is horrible.”
The police chief noted that officers engaged with about 200 civilians throughout the night and alleged that they threw rocks, were breaking into business, stealing, shooting off fireworks at officers and dumping gasoline on them as well.
“We had officers who had gas poured on them. And we’re trying to figure out what is going on. How could this be? Mr. Floyd was killed somewhere else, and they’re tearing up cities all across the country,” Hayden added, referring Floyd, whose death has been the driving force behind about a week’s worth of tense protests that have led to riots and clashes between civilians and law enforcement officials.
Floyd, a black man, was killed in police custody after a white Minnesota police officer, Derek Chauvin, used his knee to apply pressure to Floyd’s neck to keep him pinned down. He held the unarmed man accused of using a forged $20 bill in that position for about nine minutes until he was unresponsive. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Chauvin was fired and on Friday taken into custody and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other three officers at the scene have not been charged with any crimes but have all been fired.
