(Reuters) Riot gear-clad police arrested at least 17 people on Sunday after they refused orders to disperse from a spontaneous sit-in outside a convenience store in St. Louis during a weekend of otherwise peaceful protests against police violence.
Thousands of people staged protest marches, vigils and other demonstrations in the St. Louis area on the weekend, calling for the arrest of a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager in August.
Another fatal shooting of an African-American teenager by an off-duty cop last Wednesday has further inflamed tensions. Sunday’s arrests were in the same neighbourhood where Wednesday’s shooting occurred.