Emergency state declared in Ferguson

Police in riot gear contained roughly 200 protesters who had gathered in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on Monday to mark the anniversary of the police shooting of an unarmed black teen whose death ignited a national firestorm on race relations.

The demonstrators, some waving flags, beating drums, and shouting anti-police slogans, marched along a street that was a flashpoint of last year’s riots which erupted after white police officer Darren Wilson shot dead 18-year-old black teen Michael Brown.

Nine people were arrested late on Monday after a group of protesters briefly blocked the roadway, though demonstrations late into the evening were largely peaceful.

Authorities had declared a state of emergency on Monday for the St. Louis suburb and surrounding areas after police officers shot and critically wounded a man in an exchange of gunfire Sunday night, marring what had been a day of peaceful demonstrations.

Among the demonstrators on Monday evening was 51-year-old Ferguson resident Roberta Lynch, who said relations between the police and community had improved little over the past year.

“They are doing the same old stuff, taking our rights,” Lynch said. “They need to give us our space.”

Monday’s demonstrations capped a day of civil disobedience called by activists to protest the shooting of Brown and other unarmed black men across the United States by police.

Clergy and civil rights groups led a series of protests, at one point staging a demonstration at a courthouse in St. Louis where 60 people were arrested, including Princeton University professor and activist Cornel West, according to a protest organizer.

Hours later, police arrested dozens of protesters who blocked rush-hour traffic on Interstate 70 a few miles (km) from Ferguson, according to a Reuters witness.