MOSCOW, November 3 (RIA Novosti) – The no-fly zone imposed in Ferguson, Missouri, during the August protests, which followed the killing of African-American Michael Brown by a white US police officer, was meant to keep away news helicopters, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," an air traffic manager from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a recorded telephone conversation obtained by AP, referring to the airspace restriction imposed by St. Louis County Police.
According to AP, the conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to the August demonstrations in Ferguson, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.
Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American was shot dead by white police officer Darren Wilson from his vehicle on August 9. The incident triggered a long wave of protests against police brutality which forced Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to issue a state of emergency in St. Louis.
Two months later, 18-year-old African-American Vonderrit Myers died after he was shot at several times by an off-duty white police officer in the Shaw neighborhood in St. Louis. Thousands of protesters gathered at demonstrations in Ferguson and St. Louis following the shooting to rally against what they view as a series of racially motivated shootings of African-Americans by white police officers in the region.
