US protesters do not know Ferguson shooting suspect

American protesters have said that they do not know a black man who is charged with shooting two police officers in Ferguson last week.

The protesters said US authorities are trying to use African-American man Jeffrey Williams to undermine the ongoing movement against racial profiling in the city.

A protest leader, Brittany Ferrell, said no one in the group knew Williams who was watching over a demonstration outside the police department on Thursday.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said the suspect told authorities that he was not targeting the officers, who were slightly injured during the incident.

Williams told authorities that he fired gunshots at someone with whom he was in a dispute.

The 26-year-old protest leader said that McCulloch tried to cast Williams as a protester to undermine the ongoing movement against racial discrimination in the Ferguson police department and court system.

The shooting happened days after the Justice Department issued a scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department, highlighting the city’s “broken and racially biased” police system.

Following the release of the report, Attorney General Eric Holder said the federal government demanded reforms in the Ferguson Police Department, and would dismantle the force if necessary.

Prosecutor McCulloch led a grand jury that decided not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last summer in Ferguson.

The incident unleashed a massive wave of protests in the city and across the United States against police brutality and racial discrimination.