Heated protests broke out Wednesday night in Memphis, after 20 year-old Brandon Webber was shot 16 times and killed by US Marshals, CNN reported.
The uproar that ensued after Webber’s death left three people charged with disorderly conduct and 36 officers injured.
While in front of a North Memphis home “the officers fired striking and killing the individual. No officers were injured,” at that time, according to CNN.
Marshals were pursuing Webber for multiple warrants. Webber was suspected of a crime committed in Hernando, Mississippi. Hernando police called on US Marshals to arrest Webber because they believed he was involved in an armed car robbery, CNN reported.
Soon after Webber was killed, the people of the Frayser neighborhood began demanding answers, according to Fox 13.
Bricks and rocks were thrown, police car windows were smashed and Memphis police officers became the subject of some protesters’ frustrations as the protest grew more hostile.
Memphis police Director Michael Rallings, who is Black, commended protesters who actively tried to calm others down during the uprise. He also thanked the MPD officers for showing “restraint” during the protests, according to CNN News 3.
Shelby county commissioner Tami Sawyer said she stands with the Frayser community.
“Don’t judge Frayser without asking a community how it feels to mourn their youth over and over again,” Sawyer said in a tweet. “What do people do with their pain and trauma when it gets to be too much, when a city has ignored them, when their loss is too great and they can no longer yell at the sky?”