(CNN) — A Ferguson, Missouri, police officer was severely injured and is “fighting for his life” after being assaulted Friday night during protests marking the 10-year anniversary of the police shooting of Black teenager Michael Brown.
A 28-year-old has been charged in the officer’s assault, and several other protesters are in custody, officials said.
The incident came after protesters blocked streets near the Ferguson Police Department Friday night. The demonstrations remained peaceful for most of the evening until some people began “violently” shaking the fence at the police station, Chief Troy Doyle said at a Saturday news conference.
“We did not react. We stayed here, let them shake the fence,” said the chief. “That happened several times throughout the night up until the point that they broke the bottom portions of our fence, they destroyed property on our police department’s parking lot.”
At that point, Doyle deployed his arrest team to make arrests for destruction of property. The team was assaulted by several protesters, and one of the officers, identified by police as Travis Brown, suffered a severe brain injury, Doyle said.
As Travis Brown was attempting to arrest someone who had broken and stolen a large portion of the station’s fence, the suspect charged at him “violently” with his shoulder, which knocked the officer down and caused him to suffer a head injury, Doyle said.
“He is at an area hospital right now, fighting for his life,” said the chief, who was visibly emotional during the news conference.
Two other officers were injured Friday night, including one who suffered an ankle injury and another who had abrasions, Doyle said.
Friday marked 10 years to the day since Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9, 2014, while walking on the street with his friend. Officers left his body lying in the street under the hot sun for four and a half hours – long enough for local children and his family to see him lying there.
The officer, Darren Wilson, who is White, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing and federal civil rights violations.
Mike Brown’s killing and the hundreds of days of sustained protests that followed helped strengthen the Black Lives Matter movement and brought the issue of police use of force against unarmed Black Americans to the forefront of US policy and politics like never before. But a decade later, the nation’s progress toward preventing such a killing has remained frustratingly slow.
28-year-old faces charges in assault
Elijah Gantt, 28, faces five charges in Officer Travis Brown’s assault, including resisting arrest, first degree property damage and two charges of fourth degree assault, according to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Gantt is being held on a $500,000 cash-only bond and must stay 1,500 feet away from the Ferguson Police Department, according to the prosecutor’s office. CNN has been unable to determine if Gantt has obtained legal representation.
Several other protesters are in custody, and prosecutors are working on filing additional charges against them, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell said at the news conference.
“We believe people have the right to peacefully protest, but when that line is crossed and people are harmed, property is damaged – people have to be held accountable,” said Bell.
Brown joined the department in January after working with the St. Louis County Police Department, the chief said. The officer joined the force “because he was inspired to do the right thing,” he said. “He wanted to be part of the change.”
The officer is not related to Michael Brown’s family, a police spokesperson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Michael Brown’s family held weeklong tribute in his honor
The protests on Friday followed the Brown family’s weeklong tribute to the young man Mike Brown was and could have been.
On Friday, Michael Brown Sr., and his wife, Cal Brown, walked the four and a half miles from the high school where their son graduated just days before he was killed through the streets of Ferguson to the place they call “ground zero,” the rugged patch of asphalt where the teenager died.
The department remains under a 2016 federal consent decree put in place after the US Department of Justice issued a scathing report that found the city’s officers and court system had engaged in a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against African Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force and jail sentences.
Brown Sr. acknowledged the Ferguson Police Department has made progress over the years, but he compared the changes to a “rebrand,” CNN reported.
“They’ve tried to do different things, bodycams, don’t stop and frisk no more,” he said during the social media interview earlier this week. “It’s just a lot of cancer in this system that they can’t just change faces right now, they have to change the whole system.”
The Ferguson Police Department no longer looks as it did in 2014. Back then, the department had around 60 officers and fewer than five were African American, the chief told CNN. He said Brown’s killing and the ensuing protests have left a lasting impact on the department and their approach to policing.
“I had to look his mother in the eye and tell her what happened to her son. I’m never going to do that again. I promise you that I’m never going to do that again,” Doyle said, adding his police department has been a “punching bag for this community” since 2014.
Doyle said “maybe four” Ferguson police officers from 2014 are still employed at the agency. “This is a brand-new police department. I don’t know why the officers here, who weren’t even here in 2014, have to continue to suffer through this. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Doyle said his goal as chief is to engage with Ferguson’s community so his department is seen as a “legitimate, effective, professional law enforcement agency,” CNN previously reported.
CNN’s Sara Smart, Chelsea Bailey and Kara Devlin contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
