A Ferguson, Missouri, police officer was critically injured outside the city’s police station during protests on the 10th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a pivotal moment in the national Black Lives Matter movement, police said Saturday.
Ferguson police chief Troy Doyle said Officer Travis Brown suffered a severe brain injury Friday after being knocked to the ground.
“He is in an area hospital right now fighting for his life,” Doyle said.
Two other officers also were hurt, one sustaining an ankle injury and another an abrasion. Both were treated at the scene.
The team of officers went out to make arrests Friday for destruction of property at the police station, where protesters gathered to remember Michael Brown, the unarmed Black 18-year-old who was killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in 2014.
One of the suspects was charged Saturday with assault of a special victim, resisting arrest and property damage. He was ordered held on $500,000 cash only bond. No information was immediately listed in online court records, so it wasn’t known if he had an attorney yet.
The bottom of a fence surrounding the Ferguson, MO police station is repaired on Sat. Aug. 10, 2024 after it was damaged during a protest outside the police station. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) 
Ferguson Police chief Troy Doyle gives a press conference on Sa.t, Aug. 10, 2024 about the incident outside the Ferguson, MO police station on Friday night where a Ferguson officer was injured and is listed in critical condition with a brain injury. ISt. Louis-Post Dispatch via AP) 
A photo provided by Charlene Jefferson in August 2024 of officer Travis Brown when he was a St. Louis police officer, stands with Danielle Oliver. Brown, a Ferguson Police officer, suffered a severe brain injury after he was knocked to the ground Fri., Aug. 9, during a protest in Ferguson. 
A memorial to Michael Brown is displayed in Ferguson MO
Doyle said that for the majority of the night, the protesters were peaceful. He said police allowed them to block the street outside the station, posting a squad car on each end, so they wouldn’t be hit by vehicles.
Police also didn’t intervene when the protesters began shaking the fence outside the station. But he said that when they broke a section of fencing, he sent out the arrest team. The suspect who charged at Travis Brown knocked him backward with his shoulder, and the officer hit his head as he tumbled to the ground, Doyle said.
Court records said the suspect then kept running and kicked two officers who tried to arrest him, leaving them with scratches and bruises.
Doyle said Travis Brown, who is Black, started with the department in January and previously worked for the St. Louis County Police Department.
He is part of a wave of Black officers hired into the department since 2014. Back then, there were just three Black officers in the department, but Black officers now make up more than half of the police force, Doyle said.
“He wanted to be part of the change,” Doyle said. “He wanted to make an impact in our community. He’s the type of officer that we want in our community. And what happens? He gets assaulted. I had to look his mother in the eye and tell her what happened to her son. I’m never going to do that again, I promise you that.”
St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell, who had stopped by the hospital beforehand to meet with the officer’s family, said others also would be charged.
The Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading civil rights activist, urged the police chief to move with caution and “not to create an us versus them mentality.”
“Right now,” Gray added, “all of our efforts and energy need to be positive towards the recovery of the police officer. And then second to that, to do an investigation, a fair and unbiased investigation to determine what the evidence is.”
Michael Brown’s death turned Ferguson into a focal point of the national reckoning with the historically tense relationship between U.S. law enforcement and Black people.
In 2015, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice also found no grounds to prosecute Wilson. But the report gave a scathing indictment of the police department — raising significant concerns about how officers treated Black people and about a court system that created a cycle of debt for many.