
A black teenager has been shot dead by a police officer at a gas station only a few miles from where Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri - and surveillance footage apparently shows him pointing his gun at the cop before he was killed.

The victim, named by relatives as Antonio Martin, 18, was killed at a Mobil gas station on North Hanley Road in Berkeley at about 11.15pm on Tuesday.

Toni Martin, who has disputed the police account of the killing, was heard crying 'that's my baby,' as she pointed towards his body under a yellow sheet, while hundreds of people descended on the area, detonating explosives and throwing bricks at officers in protest of police brutality.

But speaking about the death on Wednesday morning, Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said that the incident should not draw comparisons with the death of Michael Brown, who was unarmed and whose death was not caught on camera. Mayor Hoskins, who himself is black, added that Berkeley has a predominantly African American police force so his officers are more sensitive to race relations than officers in Ferguson.

He said that after hearing that a black teenager had been shot by a white officer last night, his first reaction was that it was another case of police brutality. But after finding out what happened, 'I can assure you that did not happen last night', he said.

'Everybody don't die the same,' he said. 'Some people die because police initiate it. Some people die because they initiate it. At this point, our review indicated that the police did not initiate this.'

The unnamed police officer, a 34-year-old six-year veteran of the force, was responding to a call of a theft in the area when he pulled up to the gas station in his patrol car. He can be seen on the surveillance footage driving up to two males and climbing out of the car with a flashlight, police said.

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Killed: Friends paid tribute to Antonio Martin, pictured, on social media on Wednesday, hours after he was shot dead by a white cop

On camera: Surveillance footage taken outside a Mobil gas station in Berkeley, Missouri shows a police car, top left, after the officer responded to calls of a theft in the area. The officer got out of the car to speak to two men and shot one of them dead

Arm raised: 18-year-old Antonio Martin can be seen just left of the car, behind the woman, raising a weapon towards a police officer

Heartbroken: Toni Martin sobs after her son, Antonio Martin, was shot dead by police officers outside a gas station in Berkeley, Missouri on Tuesday night. She told reporters at the scene 'that's my baby'

Pained: Mrs Martin is pictured at the scene with her son's girlfriend, seen left, who later expressed her sadness on Facebook

Violence: Antonio Martin, 18, was shot dead by police at a Mobil gas station, and protests quickly erupted at the scene

One of the men approached his car while Martin stood on the other side of the vehicle, Chief Jon Belmar said at a Wednesday press conference. Martin pulled out a weapon and pointed it at the officer, who moved back, dropped his flashlight and fired three shots as he fell backwards, he said.

One of the bullets hit the teenager, another hit a tire and authorities do not yet know where the third ended up. The teenager, who did not fire his weapon, was pronounced dead at the scene by responding EMS officers.

At the press conference, Belmar offered his condolences to the family of Martin, but added that the teenager could have put down his weapon at any time but 'bad choices were made' by him instead.

'It didn't have to end with him approaching the officer with his arm extended with a 9mm pistol in his hand,' Belmar said.

A firearm they found at the scene, a 9mm Hi-Point, had had its serial number filed off, Belmar said, which might suggest it had been stolen. The weapon had five rounds in the magazine and one round in the chamber.

Chief Belmar said the victim was known to law enforcement and had previous charges including three assaults, armed robbery, armed criminal action and multiple uses of weapons since he was 17.

Authorities do not yet know the identity of the second man at the scene and are trying to track him down. He fled after the shooting.

Chief Belmar said that although the officer was responding to a call about a theft, there is not yet any indication that the two men were connected to it. He added that it was not yet clear if the call had come from the Mobil gas station.

The officer did not have his body camera switched on at the time and authorities do not believe his dashboard camera was turned on either, because it is usually activated by the car's red flashing lights, but these were not on.

Berkeley Mayor Theordore Hoskins said on Wednesday that the killing was not the same situation as the death of Michael Brown

Location: The scene of Mr Martin's shooting is only about three miles from where Michael Brown was shot in August

Shot: The teenager, who did not fire his weapon, was shot once and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said

Gunned down: His body was kept at the scene of the shooting, pictured beneath a yellow tarp, for several hours beside a police cruiser

Removed: His body was taken away from the scene around two hours after the shooting, which authorities said was normal

Killed: Friends expressed their shock that Martin had raised a gun at a police officer before he was killed. His girlfriend Keanna, pictured together left, wrote a heartbroken message on Facebook saying that her boyfriend had been changing for the better

Belmar responded to suggestions the officer could have used a Taser, saying: 'Frankly that's unreasonable.'

Mayor Hoskins added that he believes the way the police officer stumbled and shot at the man 'might have saved his life'. He asked for people not to jump to conclusions before the investigation is complete.

'All protests are different,' he said. 'Last night you would have thought it was Ferguson again. There is a jump to conclusion that all policemen are guilty. We all know that 95 per cent of our police serve our community well, so jumping to conclusions is not acceptable.'

At the press conference on Wednesday, Belmar shared the surveillance footage from the Mobil station but cut it off just before the officer fired his weapon out of consideration for the teenager's family. He added that officers are looking at other footage taken at the station and will release it later.

'What we're really trying to do is try to be as transparent as we possibly can,' Belmar said. 'We really want the community to understand this too.'

The officer is now on administrative leave until he completes certain steps, such as talking to the department about the incident, Belmar said.

'This is a tragedy for the police officer,' the chief added. 'He will carry the weight of this for the rest of his life... There are no winners here.'

His death comes amid racial tensions and protests against police violence across the U.S. Protests have been ongoing after a white police officer shot dead unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in broad daylight in August, and violence erupted after a grand jury ruled not to indict the officer.

Days later, a grand jury on Staten Island, New York decided not to indict the officer who held Eric Garner in a chokehold, leading to his death in July.

This weekend, 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot dead two police officers as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn after threatening to 'put wings on pigs' for the deaths of Brown and Garner. SWAT teams have now been sent to two Brooklyn NYPD precincts after receiving threats from gangs.

On Wednesday morning, Antonio Martin's mother Toni spoke to reporters at the scene earlier and disputed the police account of the incident.

According to the St Louis Post Dispatch, Mrs Martin said her son was walking with his girlfriend to the store when police arrived. She claims that he was shot dead as he 'was trying to get up and run' and said he did not have a gun

'The police was messing with him,' she told the newspaper. 'He was trying to get up and run. When he tried to get up and ran they started shooting him.'

She said he son, the oldest of her four children, was 'a good young man' who 'was trying to get his life back together' and who 'had dreams or hopes'.

Calm: A police cruiser sits at the Mobil station in Berkeley on Wednesday morning, hours after the body was taken away

His girlfriend, Keanna, leaves a message on a makeshift memorial outside the Mobil on the Run gas station where Martin was shot

Weapon: Police investigators found a gun at the scene of the shooting, pictured, in Berkeley, Missouri

Recovered: St Louis County Police shared this image of the handgun recovered from the scene

Distraught: Toni Martin, left, the mother of the slain teen, speaks with an investigator in the parking lot early on Wednesday morning

Demonstrations: Police arrested four people for assaulting police officers following disturbances after last night's shooting in Berkeley

Clash: Police scuffled with as many as 300 protesters at the scene of last night's fatal shooting in Berkeley

Dangerous: Three explosives were detonated, police said, including one right next to a gas pump at the station

The front entrance to a shop on the opposite side of the street, pictured, was damaged amid scuffles

The boy's father, Jerome Green, added that Martin worked at White Castle and had recently been trying to get work through the Job Corps.

'In the last year, he was really trying to find who he was. He was ready to take the world on,' he told the Post Dispatch.

After the shooting, Toni Martin complained that police wouldn't let her 'see her baby'. She said that she had only learned about her son's death when his girlfriend came to pick her up.

On Facebook on Wednesday, Martin's girlfriend posted an image of the pair together as she expressed her sadness.

'Hold me one more time,' she wrote beneath the image. 'Tell me uhuu love me, tell me baby we gone be okk... Kiss me & say uhuu not going no where it wasn't yo time baby uhuu was changing for the better.'

Officers secured the area surrounding Martin's body with crime scene tape and Martin's body was kept on the parking lot overnight as the investigation into the shooting began. He was covered by a yellow body bag beside a police cruiser.

Martin's father told CNN that his son headed out last night to spend the night with his girlfriend.

A large group of approximately 200 to 300 people gathered at the scene of the shooting, which Chief Belmar said is not unusual after such an event. But he said it was unusual how they turned on police, and claimed that some of the protesters had brought rocks with them to throw at cops.

He said that three explosives - perhaps fireworks packed together - were detonated near the scene, including one explosion that was right near a gas pump.

As the size of the protest grew, police deployed officers in riot gear. Some heavily armed police with assault rifles were also spotted at the scene.

Four arrests were made for assaults against police officers, and at least two officers were taken to the ER. One suffered abrasions to his face from a brick being thrown, while the other hurt his leg as he tried to escape an explosion, Chief Belmar said.

At a press conference on Wednesday, St Louis County Chief Jon Belmar said the officer only shot after the teenager raised his gun

Standoff: Police said that some of the protesters brought rocks to throw at them, and two officers were sent to the ER with injuries

Out in force: Police officers line the gas station following Tuesday night's shooting, just a few miles from where Michael Brown died

Crowd: A group of about 60 people gathered at the scene of the shooting on the outskirts of St Louis last night

Anger: In Brooklyn, near to where two police officers were shot dead last weekend, graffiti reading 'Kill cops' can be seen on the ground

2014 COP KILLINGS THAT SPARKED RACIAL TENSION ACROSS AMERICA January 19: Unarmed black man Jordan Baker, 26, is fatally shot outside a Houston shopping mall by Juventino Castro - who suspected him to be a burglar. Punishment: Not indicted July 17: Eric Garner dies after being put in a chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo. Garner was subdued after he grew agitated over being stopped for allegedly selling cigarettes. He was heard repeatedly saying 'I can't breathe' before he passed out. Punishment: Not indicted August 9 2014: Michael Brown, 18, is fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson - sparking months of rioting and unrest. Punishment: Not indicted November 22 2014: Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy, is shot dead by police officer Timothy Loehmann, 26, while playing with a toy airsoft gun in a park in Cleveland, Ohio. Punishment: Loehmann, as well as his patrol partner, 46-year-old Frank Garmback, are on paid administrative leave pending a decision on whether to pursue criminal charges. December 23: Black teenager Antonio Martin, 18, is killed by police at a Mobil gas station in St. Louis, Missouri - sparking violent clashes between crowds and police officers. Advertisement

Orlando Brown, 36, of nearby St. Charles was among the protesters. He said he didn't have all the details about the shooting but said he wondered if it was a case of police aggression.

He said: 'I understand police officers have a job and have an obligation to go home to their families at the end of the night. But do you have to treat every situation with lethal force? ... It's not a racial issue, or black or white. It's wrong or right.'

Brown said he was pepper-sprayed during the protest as police tried to separate him from a friend whose hand he was holding. He said his friend was arrested for failing to disperse.

Eyewitnesses claimed that police failed to call Martin an ambulance as he lay mortally wounded on the ground, but Chief Belmar said that EMS arrived on the scene and determined that the teenager was already dead.

An audio file uploaded onto Soundcloud is claimed to have an emergency call made by the officer in the aftermath of the shooting. The audio has a request for 'crowd control' but does not appear to call for an ambulance.

Some social media users suggested that Martin's gun had only appeared on the ground after the shooting.

A number of protesters draped themselves in yellow crime-scene tape while others taunted and yelled at police officers.

The latest shooting is only about three miles from where Michael Brown was shot dead by officer Darren Wilson in August, which caused massive protests throughout the area and across the country.

Michael Brown's death in August led to considerable unrest in the St Louis area, which was reignited last month when a grand jury decided against indicting officer Darren Wilson, who later resigned from the Ferguson Police Department.

Berkeley neighbours the suburb of Ferguson, where police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown on August 9, a killing that fueled criticism of the way police and the criminal justice system treat minority groups.

Protests in Ferguson have taken place for months and spilled over into violence when a grand jury decided not to charge Wilson.

Demonstrations in cities across the country gained in momentum when a New York grand jury decided not to charge police over the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man who police tackled and put in a chokehold.

About 200 people marched in New York on Tuesday, defying Mayor Bill de Blasio's call for protests to be suspended after two police officers were killed in their patrol car on Saturday in an apparent revenge attack.

In Los Angeles, police said they would investigate whether any officers were involved in the singing of a song, at a party organised by a retired policeman, that poked fun at the Ferguson killing.

The lyrics of the song, on a video posted on entertainment news website TMZ, said: 'Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin' with a badass policeman.'

Up to 300 protesters gathered at the scene of last night's shooting as police protected the area

Scene: Police secured the scene of the shooting, pictured, following Martin's death last night



