FERGUSON, Mo. -- The police conducted a manhunt in this tense and battered city on Thursday in search of whoever shot two officers as they worked at a protest after the resignation of the chief.
The shooting just after midnight Thursday, described as "really an ambush" by Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County Police Department, was denounced by all sides in the continuing conflict over law enforcement here after the death, at the hands of the police, of an unarmed black teenager last summer, and the police crackdown on the ensuing protests.
Police SWAT units surrounded a house a few blocks from the scene of the shooting, and officers climbed onto the roof and broke through a vent to gain access. The police took three people from the house in for questioning and released them hours later.
The three, Iresha Turner, who lives at the home, and her friends Martez Little and Lamont Underwood, said they had attended the protest but had nothing to do with the shootings. Turner and Underwood said they fled from the protest to Turner's house when the shots were fired, and Little said he went to Turner's home later.
Turner said her 6-year-old son had been traumatized by the search and the implication that his mother might have something to do with the crime.
"I have to live here," said Turner, who identified herself as a single mother. "I have no help. I'm a good woman."
Underwood speculated that someone might have seen him and Turner speeding away from the protest scene and reported it to the police.
On Thursday, before midnight, dozens of protesters gathered near the police department here, some spilling into the street before the police announced that blocking traffic could lead to arrest. The St. Louis County Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol had already assumed responsibility for security, just as they did after the unrest following the shooting of the teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. A grand jury did not indict the officer, and the Justice Department also declined to bring charges.
The two police officers were shot shortly after midnight during a protest in front of the police station after the chief, Thomas Jackson, announced his resignation. His departure was the most recent in a shake-up of the city's most senior administrators after a recent Justice Department report that described a city that used its legal system to generate revenue, in the process violating constitutional rights and disproportionately targeting blacks.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. denounced the shootings as "heinous and cowardly attacks."
"This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson," Holder said at a news conference in Washington.
Community organizers extended sympathy to the officers who were shot, while trying to keep the focus on their own longstanding complaints.
"As frequent victims of violence, we certainly understand the pain of these senseless acts," said the Rev. Traci Blackmon of Christ the King Church of Christ in nearby Florissant.
Gov. Jay Nixon visited, his motorcade rolling past the site of the shootings that he called, in a statement, "cowardly and reprehensible."
The shootings came at a vulnerable time, just as the city was making "good-faith steps," as Holder put it, toward restoring faith in its criminal justice system. In a statement, the city of Ferguson said it was "diligently working to make systematic changes necessary to instill confidence," but added, "We cannot continue to move forward under threats of violence and destruction."
With the issue of police shootings bringing political polarization, Holder, who has been at the forefront of the effort to bring change to Ferguson's policing, came in for some criticism.
"There's an atmosphere of unbalance here," Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, said on Fox News, blaming the Justice Department for emphasizing the faults of the Ferguson Police Department without saying that the officer who fatally shot Brown in August "did exactly what he should do."
The late-night protest Wednesday started as a celebration of Jackson's resignation, but also as a call for more action.
"Not just Jackson, we want Knowles, Ferguson has got to go!" the demonstrators yelled in reference to James Knowles III, the mayor.
When the shots echoed through the crisp air, striking the two officers, demonstrators and police officers hit the ground. Many people ran for cover, and police officers clad in riot gear dragged their wounded comrades to safety.
"We're lucky by God's grace we didn't lose two officers last night," Belmar said at a midmorning news conference. It was clear that the police were the targets, he said.
Based on the sound of the shots and the officers' wounds, he said, the weapon was a handgun, not a rifle.The officers who were shot were standing side by side, part of a cordon from multiple police departments, keeping protesters away from the police station. There had been as many as 69 officers in the evening, dwindling to about 50 at the time of the shooting, Belmar said.
One of the wounded officers was from the Webster Groves Police Department. He is 32 and a seven-year veteran of the force. The other was from the St. Louis County Police and is 41 with 14 years' experience, the county police said. Both were treated at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
The younger officer was shot in the cheekbone, just below his right eye, and the bullet lodged behind his right ear, Belmar said. A bullet struck the other officer in the right shoulder, and exited his back on the right side. No officers returned fire. The officers were released from a hospital Thursday morning.
Belmar said that people had a right to protest peacefully, but also that "there is an unfortunate association with that gathering" and the shooting.
Witnesses among the demonstrators denied any link to the shootings, saying that they believed the shots originated from the top of a hill about 220 yards directly opposite the station. Belmar did not specify a location, but estimated the distance at 125 yards.
"There's just no way anybody I know did that," said Bob Hudgins, a protester who is running for City Council. "Nobody's happy about this today."
The Brown family, in a statement from its lawyer, denounced "the actions of stand-alone agitators" who tried to derail the protests. "We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement," the statement said. "It cannot and will not be tolerated."
Belmar said the shooting realized his worst fears over the months of unrest since Brown's killing. He drew a parallel to the fatal shooting in December of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, by a man who said he was enraged by killings by the police, including that of Brown.
"We were very close to having happen what happened to NYPD," Belmar said.
John Eligon reported from Ferguson, and Shaila Dewan and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Mitch Smith contributed reporting from Ferguson.