Ferguson protests
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A man falls to the ground suffering the effect of tear gas used by police at a protest of the death of Michael Brown August 17, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Chaos erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, late Sunday night, the second night of heavy protests amid a midnight curfew imposed by Gov. Jay Nixon.
Ferguson has been the sight of racially charged protests since the Aug. 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Clashes between protesters and police had calmed as the week progressed, but have ramped up again over the weekend.
On Sunday night, there were numerous reports of police firing tear gas into crowds marching toward a police command center, hours before the curfew was set to be imposed. St. Louis County police said Molotov cocktails were being thrown at police.
"It really is just pure chaos down here," Brian Schellman, a St. Louis County Police spokesperson, told KSDK News in St. Louis.
Many protesters disputed the police account that Molotov cocktails had been thrown at police.
"That is a lie. It was no fight, it was no shots fired," protester Lisha Williams told CNN. "The only ones who fired was police. All we did was march to the command center to fall to our knees and say, 'Don't shoot.' And they started shooting."