Two policemen were shot in in Ferguson, Missouri early Thursday morning, hours after the city's police chief resigned in the wake of a Justice Department report accusing the department of racially-biased policing.
One of the officers is a member of the St. Louis County police department, while the other is from a town near Ferguson. St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar told reporters one officer was shot in the shoulder, while the other was shot in the face. There has been no official word on their condition, but Belmar said the officers were conscious and being treated at a local hospital.
He said the officers were shot "just because they were police officers," and added that the shooter was "somehow embedded" in the group of demonstrators.
But witnesses in Ferguson reported that the shots appeared to come from a hill across the street from the station. A large number of police officers were deployed outside the station moments after the shots rang out.
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson submitted his resignation Wednesday, seven months after Darren Wilson, a white police officer fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown during a street confrontation last August.