NEW YORK
A 20-year-old man was arrested and charged Sunday in connection with Thursday's shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, authorities said.
Jeffrey Williams, who participated in a demonstration outside the Ferguson police station Wednesday night, acknowledged firing the shots but indicated that they were not aimed at police, Robert P. McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, said at a press conference.
McCulloch said the suspect may have fired at someone other than the police officers after a dispute with other civilians who were in the area, but added, "I am not sure we are completely buying that part of it."
Williams, an African-American, is charged with two counts of first-degree assault, firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal action, the prosecutor said.
The shooting of the officers occurred during a night of renewed protests in Ferguson after the resignation of the city's police chief in the wake of the release of a scathing federal report that catalogued widespread racial discrimination against blacks.
The policemen, who sustained injuries from shoulder and eye, have been released from the hospital.
The St. Louis County suburb became a focal point of a national debate on race relations and police brutality following the August 2014 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.
