Ferguson police claim black teen shot himself, witnesses dispute

US police officers have reportedly shot and seriously wounded a black teenager in the face in a St. Louis suburb near Ferguson, claiming that the victim suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Authorities said the 18-year-old victim who has been identified as Amonderez Green suffered a gunshot wound to his face after firing at officers Wednesday afternoon.

The Normandy Police Department said in a statement that “it appears at this time that the male was not struck by law enforcement gunfire."

Green was taken to a hospital and is in critical condition, according to the statement.

The department said Green fired at officers, who were called in to help a "suicidal subject" whose family was attempting to calm him down.

When the officers attempted to speak to Green; he allegedly removed a gun from his waistband and began firing at them, police said.

The officers returned fire after deploying a Taser, which had no effect on the teenager, according to the statement.

People at the scene, however, said they witnessed one of the officers shoot the teenage boy in the face, the Huffington Post reported Thursday.

"We heard approximately six gunshots ring out,” a woman told the Post. “I yelled and told my daughter to get down."

"He was right at eye level as [the officer] shot him," the witness said. "It was not a suicide at all."

Jermell Simpson, the victim's father, posted a video on Instagram, saying, "When he started running, Ferguson [police] started shooting."

Dominique Clemons, another witness who said saw the shooting from about three houses up the street, told the Post that one of the officers shot the black teenager.

"While he was running, he turned around to face the police and that's when he got shot in the face. I saw his body drop. They shot him in the face, his whole right side of his face was gone, his top lip was gone," she added.

Ferguson is the city where an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson last year. Brown’s death sparked weeks of protest and further fueled racial tensions in the US.

Ferguson's local government and police forces are mostly white, while about two-thirds of the residents are black.

The latest shooting happened amid public outrage over high-profile killings of several unarmed African American men by white police officers in the last two years.

The number of US police officers charged in deadly shootings has surged to the highest level in a decade this year, but only a small percentage result in convictions, new research shows.

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