Officer kills armed 18-year-old near Ferguson

BERKELEY, Mo. — A mayor is pressing for calm in his St. Louis suburb after a white police officer fatally shot a black 18-year-old police say pointed a handgun at the officer.

St. Louis County police on Wednesday identified the young man killed during the Berkeley encounter as Antonio Martin.

County Police Chief Jon Belmar says the officer was questioning the 18-year-old and another man about a theft at a convenience store when the young man pulled a handgun.

Belmar says the officer fired three shots, one striking the 18-year-old.

Berkeley is near Ferguson, where Michael Brown’s August shooting death by a white police officer sparked sometimes violent demonstrations.

Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins says the Martin and Brown cases are different, partly because there was no video of the fatal encounter in Ferguson.