Ferguson Police Hunt for Suspects after 2 Officers Shot

The shooting of two police officers at a protest in Ferguson, Missouri, triggered a sweeping manhunt for suspects on Thursday and ratcheted up tensions in a city at the center of a national debate over race and policing.

US President Barack Obama said there could be no excuse for the attack on the officers, who were released from a hospital after being treated for wounds. Attorney General Eric Holder called it a "pure ambush."

"This was not someone who was trying to bring healing to Ferguson; this was a damn punk," Holder told reporters.

The pair were hit by gunfire outside the police headquarters in the St. Louis suburb during a rally by protesters demanding comprehensive changes after a scathing US Justice Department report detailed deep-rooted racial bias within Ferguson's mostly white police force.

It was the latest of many rallies held in the city since the killing in August of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, which also prompted protests around the country, and the federal investigation.

About 100 people demonstrated again outside the police station late on Thursday, some banging drums while other chanted "If we don't get no justice, they won't get no peace!"

One woman wore a T-shirt that read: "Is my son next?"

The crowd blocked traffic at times and was told to clear the road by police using loudspeakers, but there were no arrests and by midnight local time the protesters were gone.

Activists who condemned the shooting had also earlier held a candle-light prayer vigil for peace, which was attended by about 40 people a short distance up the road.

"We deplore all forms of violence," said Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, who was in the crowd when shots rang out. "But we also deplore the findings of the Department of Justice report and the suffering and the misery that this community has endured."

NO ARRESTS MADE

Throughout the day, St. Louis County investigators canvassed streets near the police station, peering into trash cans, down drains, and quizzing residents about what they saw or heard.

Several people were brought in for questioning, but all of them were later released and no arrests were made, police said. Two Missouri congressman offered a $3,000 reward for information leading to the culprit.

The shooting left a 41-year-old St. Louis County police officer with a shoulder wound, and a 32-year-old officer from nearby Webster Groves Police Department with a bullet lodged near his ear, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said.

Belmar said the shooter used a handgun and that shell casings were recovered, and he said the bullets came from the middle of the crowd of protesters.

"I don't know who did the shooting ... but somehow they were embedded in that group of folks," he told a news conference.

Demonstrators at the scene insisted the shooter had been behind them, on a street leading away from the police station.

"The shooter was not with the protesters. The shooter was atop the hill," activist DeRay McKesson said on Twitter.

'HEINOUS ACT'

Obama said the recent events in Ferguson were worthy of protests, but there was no excuse for criminal acts. "Whoever fired those shots shouldn't detract from the issue," he said on the ABC program "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

The shooting came less than three months after a man ambushed two New York City patrolmen, apparently seeking to avenge the killings of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson and an unarmed black man in New York.

Ferguson was rocked by two nights of rioting after a grand jury recommended no charges be filed in Brown's death. His parents condemned the shooting as a "heinous act" and said they are praying for the wounded officers.

Wednesday night's rally came just hours after the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, a long-held demand of the demonstrators.

He was the latest Ferguson official to quit after the Justice Department found the city used police to issue traffic citations to black residents to boost its coffers, creating a "toxic environment" of harassment.