Chicago: Protests broke out and US police responded with teargas after an 18-year-old black man was shot dead in a confrontation with white officers in St. Louis, Missouri, officials said Wednesday.

The city is close to the trouble spot of Ferguson, where a police killing of an unarmed black man last year prompted angry protests and renewed discussion of race and policing in the United States.

Police said Wednesday’s deadly shooting took place when the suspect pointed a gun at officers.

Shortly afterwards, protesters began gathering at the site.

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said they threw bottles and bricks at police and refused to move from an intersection.

‘A group of protesters came together and started to do acts of violence directed not only towards law enforcement but towards the neighbourhood,’ Dotson said in recorded remarks released by the police department.

After other attempts to clear the area failed, Dotson said police used teargas to reopen the intersection.

‘Peace was restored after a total of nine arrests,’ he said.

Early on Thursday, police released edited video of the protest which appeared to show demonstrators throwing rocks and water bottles at a phalanx of police who hid behind riot shields.

Tensions High

Officers could be seen patrolling the streets late Wednesday as an abandoned building near the protests went up in flames, images on Twitter showed.

Overnight, police received reports of burglaries and a car being set alight in the area.

Dotson said police had discovered three stolen guns during investigations after the shooting. 

Police tweeted early on Thursday morning that the suspect’s gun was reported stolen and had an extended magazine.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the 18-year-old had pointed a gun at two officers who were serving a search warrant. They then opened fire, killing him. 

Sometimes violent protests began again in Ferguson this month after peaceful demonstrations marking the first anniversary of the shooting that killed another 18-year-old, Michael Brown, escalated into violence and looting.

The officer who killed Brown was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Tensions around St. Louis between the black community and the police have remained high since Brown’s shooting. 

A scathing Justice Department report found Ferguson’s city hall, police department and municipal court unfairly targeted the city’s African-American majority as a means to generate revenue.