This image was removed due to legal reasons.

Wearing only a t-shirt in 40-degree weather, Antonio Martin’s mother rushed into the Mobil gas station where her son was shot and killed by a police officer in Berkeley, Missouri, early morning Dec. 23. Her 18-year-old son’s body still lay on the ground.


“I want to know what happened to my son,” Toni Martin said hysterically as she approached the crime scene. A police officer tried to usher her into the warmth of the backseat of a patrol car, but she declined. Someone handed her a sweater instead.


St. Louis County Police are investigating. The department has already released a surveillance video from gas station's cameras that allegedly "shows the suspect pointing a gun at the officer," according to the description police put on the video.

Sergeant Brian Schellman said a police officer with the City of Berkeley Police Department was conducting a routine check at a Mobil gas station when he noticed two male subjects standing on the side of the building. The officer reportedly exited his vehicle and approached the subjects, when one of the men pulled a handgun on him.

“Fearing for his life, the Berkeley Officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him,” said Sergeant Schellman in a statement e-mailed to Fusion.

The incident occurred just 5 miles from where Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer on Aug. 9.


The scene on the streets of Berkeley early Wednesday was all too familiar. St. Louis police officers dressed in riot gear, with some carrying military grade weapons, held back a crowd of black demonstrators.

RELATED: Tear gas and flames: Watch how Ferguson descended into chaos

Berkeley is even more segregated than Ferguson. The St. Louis suburb is predominantly black; almost 82 percent of its 9,000 residents are African American, according to 2013 Census stats.


UPDATE: 3:57PM EST, Tuesday 12/24/14

Police officials have released multiple angles of the fatal shooting from neighboring surveillance cameras.