The incident occurred Friday when a demonstration commemorating Brown’s death turned destructive, according to Ferguson Police Chief Troy Doyle.
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A police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, is “fighting for his life” after being attacked during protests marking the 10th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, the city’s police chief said.
The incident occurred Friday night outside the Ferguson Police Department after a demonstration commemorating Brown’s death turned destructive, according to Police Chief Troy Doyle. Officer Travis Brown and other officers attempted to arrest protesters who were damaging a fence outside a police station, Doyle said.
A protester attacked Officer Brown as he tried to arrest him, causing him to fall and hit his head, causing a “severe brain injury,” Doyle added. Protesters injured two other officers, one of whom suffered an ankle injury and another with abrasions.
Authorities said the department has been completely reformed since the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 and that Friday night’s attack on officers was a senseless act of unrest.
“This police department has been a whipping boy for this community since 2014,” Doyle said at a news conference Saturday. “I don’t know why the officers here who weren’t even here in 2014 have to continue to put up with this. It doesn’t make sense.”
The St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office has charged 28-year-old Elijah Gantt with first-degree assault, resisting prosecution, criminal damage to property and two counts of fourth-degree assault. In addition to Gantt, four other people have been charged with charges including criminal damage to property, resisting prosecution and third-degree assault.
St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell, who also spoke at the press conference, noted that the attack represents a new low for the community.
“The hardest thing I had to do was talk to and comfort the mother who doesn’t know if her child is going to make it,” Bell said.
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Officer Brown has been with the Ferguson Police Department since Jan. 2, according to Doyle. The police chief said Brown is the type of officer the community wants on duty.
“Not all police officers are bad,” Doyle said. “Officer Brown took this job because he wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to be part of the change, he wanted to make a difference in our community, and what happens? He gets attacked.”
Brown came to the Ferguson police department from the nearby St. Louis County Police Department, Doyle said.
According to Sergeant Tracy Panus, a spokesman for the St. Louis department, he served in the St. Louis department from August 2012 to October 2023. Brown worked as a patrol officer and as a tactical operations officer.
“During his time in St. Louis County, Travis has made a positive impact on our community and made many friends throughout the department,” Panus said.
Don Van, president of the Ferguson-area Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 15, said Brown is still in the hospital and unconscious.
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How has Ferguson changed since 2014?
Friday night’s protests were against the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown. The killing of the unarmed black teenager by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson turned the Black Lives Matter outcry into a national movement, and although he was never charged, public outcry over the killing and a federal court order led to a complete restructuring of the police department.
The demonstration in Ferguson also came amid renewed calls for police reform following the murder of Sonya Massey in nearby Springfield, Illinois. The 36-year-old unarmed black woman was killed in her kitchen by a deputy after she called 911 for help.
Doyle praised the changes in his department, saying, “This is a brand new department.”
Ferguson’s police force, which had only a handful of black officers in 2014, is now more than 50 percent black and 23 percent female, said Doyle, who is also black. The department also began using body-worn cameras, mandated training on dealing with implicit bias and crisis intervention, and even changed its uniforms, which some people found to be a disturbing reminder of traumatic experiences.
Only 1% of the more than 30,000 calls to police last year resulted in the use of force, Doyle said in a post on X, praising the changes in the department. More than 90% of current officers joined the department after 2014.
