Governor Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in Ferguson, Missouri in response to looters after racial tensions boiled over once more in the wake of the police shooting of an unarmed black teen.
"To protect the people and property of Ferguson today, I signed an order declaring a state of emergency and ordering implementation of a curfew in the impacted area of Ferguson," Nixon told reporters on Saturday.
Captain Ron Johnson, in charge of security in the restive St Louis suburb, said the curfew would begin overnight and last from midnight to 5am.
It follows incidents of looting after racial tensions boiled over once more in the wake of the police shooting of an unarmed black teen.
Midwestern US riot police fired tear gas and clashed with protesters, with anger again boiling over after an officer shot dead an unarmed black teenager a week ago.
Saturday's renewed unrest came hours after police said Michael Brown, 18, had been the suspect in a robbery at a convenience store in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, minutes before a policeman fired on him.
Police also named the white officer involved in the shooting in the majority black area, but after a calm Thursday night, the announcements served only to ratchet up tensions again, with people targeting shops, reportedly including the one where Brown carried out the alleged robbery on August 9.
Three stores were looted in the fresh disturbances that also saw Molotov cocktails lobbed at police, CNN said from Ferguson, but there were also reports that locals, some armed, had stepped in to stop shops being ransacked.
Police - who have been accused of a heavy-handed response - retaliated with tear gas, smoke bombs and rubber bullets, but mostly stayed at a distance in armoured vehicles and riot gear, news reports said.
"If you're getting conflicting reports, it's because there's chaos here. It's dead in some areas, crazy in others.#Ferguson," wrote BuzzFeed reporter Joel Anderson on Twitter.
Brown's death at the hands of an overwhelmingly white police force has renewed a national debate about relations between law enforcement and African Americans.
His family appealed for calm but after police said on Friday he was the suspect in a robbery and released CCTV footage of it, the family accused authorities of a "devious" attempt to smear the character of their son, who had no criminal record and was about to start vocational college.
"There is nothing based on the facts that have been placed before us that can justify the execution-style murder of their child by this police officer as he held his hands up, which is the universal sign of surrender," a lawyer for the family said.
Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson identified the officer who shot Brown as Darren Wilson, 28, a white, four-year veteran of the force with no disciplinary record.
But muddying the waters, Jackson said: "Initial contact between the officer and Mr Brown was not related to the robbery."
Wilson - in a patrol car - stopped Brown "because he was walking down the street, stopping traffic. That was it", Jackson said.
Wilson's home in a mostly white town 30 kilometres from Ferguson has been under police protection but neighbours told The Washington Post the officer got "spooked and took off pretty quickly before
the name was announced".
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has drafted in state police to take over from local police and placed Ron Johnson, an African-American officer, in charge.
The move brought calm on Thursday but it turned out to be only a temporary respite.
Share
