Police hurl tear gas at US protesters in Ferguson

FERGUSON: Riot police hurled tear gas and marched on rioters late Sunday in Ferguson, the St Louis suburb wracked by race riots since police shot dead an unarmed black teenager.

Police in body armor, helmets and gas masks moved in with armored vehicles to disperse a mob of mostly young people about three hours before the midnight (0500 GMT Monday) curfew came into effect.

Some of the youths carried signs protesting police brutality. Many had their hands up in the air, and others taunted police and threw back tear gas canisters.

Police dispersed the protest after rioters threw Molotov cocktails at officers, the St. Louis County Police said on Twitter.Officer from St. Charles County said that gunshots were fired in the direction of the police.

The city has endured days of violence since a white police officer on August 9 shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old.Images posted by the Post-Dispatch showed vandals smashing the windows of a McDonald´s restaurant.

"We were walking up peacefully towards the command center to kneel in protest in front of the police, to say ´our hands are up,´" said Lisha Williams, who was in the march.

"They started firing tear gas at us out of the blue. I know what tear gas is, my face was burning," said Williams, who described herself as an army veteran.

Brown shot six times
Brown was shot at least six times -- twice in the head and four times in the right arm -- the New York Times reported, citing a preliminary private autopsy.

All the shots were fired into his front, the Times reported, citing Michael Baden, the former New York City chief medical examiner who conducted an autopsy at the family´s request.

"People have been asking: How many times was he shot? This information could have been released on Day One," Baden told The Times.

"They don´t do that, even as feelings built up among the citizenry that there was a cover-up. We are hoping to alleviate that," he said.

Baden, 80, is a famous forensic pathologist who has testified at the trial of OJ Simpson, and was consulted for investigations into the deaths of John F. Kennedy and actor John Belushi. Benjamin Crump, the attorney representing Brown´s family, said on Twitter that he and Baden would hold a press conference Monday morning.

Crump, who called Brown´s death an "execution," earlier represented the family of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black 16-year-old shot dead in Florida in 2012.Brown´s family has accused authorities of a "devious" attempt to smear their son´s character after police named him as a suspect in the robbery of a Ferguson convenience store and released a surveillance video of the incident.

Police said the officer, unaware of the robbery, stopped the teen merely for walking in the middle of the street.