Police are looking for anyone with information regarding the unrelated shootings of two police officers in around Ferguson, Mo., which remains in upheavel after a black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer last month, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Neither officer sustained life-threatening injuries, according to the St. Louis County Police Department. The Saturday night shooting of an officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson did not seem linked to peaceful demonstrations happening around the city, police said. The incident also doesn't seem to be connected to a different shooting involving an off-duty police officer in St. Louis Sunday.
As of Sunday afternoon, police have yet to arrest any suspects.
There isn't any evidence yet that either incident was connected to the demonstrations happening in Ferguson over the Aug. 9 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, but both officers' injuries came following a week of contentious run-ins between demonstrators and police, the LA Times reported.
The unnamed Ferguson officer was conducting a "business check" at the Ferguson Community Center when he saw a male suspect at the building who allegedly bolted when he saw the officer, according to a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.
One shot hit the officer in the arm, and afterwards the officer shot back, but did not appear to hit the suspect, who escaped into a wooded area behind the community center.
The off-duty St. Louis city officer, wearing only his uniform pants but not his uniform shirt, was shot at a couple hours later while driving a personal car less than a mile from the Ferguson city line, according to St. Louis County police. It still isn't clear whether the officer, who didn't return fire, was personally targeted or whether the shooting was random; having been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The city's residents have been waiting to see what happens when a St. Louis County grand jury makes its decision on whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson, the officer who fatally shot Brown.
