24/12/2014
Weeks of protests and riots had erupted in Ferguson after an officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown [Getty]
An 18-year-old black teenager has been killed by a police officer, who claims to have acted in self-defence, at a petrol station in the St Louis suburb of Berkeley in the US state of Missouri.
Police said that an officer was conducting a routine check at the petrol station on Wednesday when he approached two men, one of whom pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer.
Brian Shellman, a police spokesperson, said the officer then fired several shots, striking and fatally wounding the suspect.
He said the second suspect fled the scene.
The St Louis Post Dispatch reported that a group of about 60 people had gathered at the scene.
The dead man's identity was not immediately released, although the St Louis Post Dispatch reported that a woman at the scene identified him as her son, Antonio Martin.
Berkeley is about two miles away from Ferguson, where weeks of protests and riots had erupted after a police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August.
The St Louis County Police Department is handling the investigation, and no further details about the incident were immediately available.