WASHINGTON, November 27 (Sputnik) – At least 24 people have asked for professional medical help in St. Louis, Missouri where protests erupted over a grand jury decision not to indict a white police officer for fatally shooting an African-American teenager, hospital officials have told Sputnik.
"At 6 a.m. yesterday we had 7 patients, 5 treated and released, 2 were admitted; and at 6 a.m. today we had 7 new patients, 3 released and 4 were admitted. That's a total of 14 patients," Barnes-Jewish Hospital media representative Nicholas McLaren said Wednesday when asked how many protest victims had been admitted.
The hospital representative could not confirm the condition of the patients or their age.
The Missouri National Guard (@Missouri_NG) standing with local police for add’l security at #Ferguson Police Dept. pic.twitter.com/27SjtpaX61
— MO Public Safety (@MoPublicSafety) November 26, 2014
Director of Media Relations at SSM Health Care, Steve Van Dinter, told Sputnik Wednesday that their medical centers had admitted 10 patients who were hurt or injured during the protests.
"We had 3 [patients] total at SSM St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights, 2 total at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center, and 5 total at SSM DePaul Health Center," Van Dinter said.
The hospital official confirmed that there had been no life-threatening cases and that "everybody has been treated and released".
Major protests erupted in 38 US states over a grand jury's decision Monday not to indict officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on August 9.
This is the second wave of protests linked to the incident with the first hitting the country in the aftermath of the shooting. Police then were criticized for using heavy-handed tactics to quell the protests.
Addressing this issue on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called on the authorities of the US State of Missouri and US federal authorities to provide an opportunity for the protesters to express their opinions freely, provided they do so in a peaceful manner.
