ST. LOUIS
Two police officers were shot and seriously wounded early Thursday morning during a protest outside the police department in Ferguson, Missouri.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in a press conference that a 32-year-old police officer suffered serious wounds to his face and a 41-year-old police officer sustained serious wounds to his upper torso.
He said that it is not yet clear who shot at the police officers, who are currently undergoing medical treatment.
The police officers were shot at a protest that began Wednesday night outside the police department in Ferguson after police chief Thomas Jackson announced his resignation. Jackson is the sixth city official to step down in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report that catalogued widespread racial discrimination against blacks.
Attorney General Eric Holder called the attack a "heinous assault" that was "inexcusable and repugnant."
"Such senseless acts of violence threaten the very reforms that non-violent protesters in Ferguson and around the country have been working towards for the past several months," he said.
The St. Louis suburb became a focal point of a national debate on race relations and police brutality following the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson.
A Missouri grand jury and the Justice Department cleared the officer in the shooting, but a federal investigation found systematic racial bias in the city's policing tactics.
Holder had earlier said the Justice Department would reform the Ferguson police force and even consider dismantling it.
Ferguson is roughly two-thirds black, but its police force is nearly all white.
