Gunshots fired at Ferguson march to commemorate Michael Brown shooting

Police in the US town of Ferguson say two people have been shot during a demonstration marking a year since the death of teenager Michael Brown.

Shots rang out as several hundred people gathered on West Florissant Street.

St Louis County Police said that an officer who came under “heavy gunfire” had returned shots, and that at least two unmarked cars were hit by bullets.

Minutes after the shots were heard, an Associated Press photographer saw a man lying face down, covered in blood, behind a boarded-up restaurant.

It was not immediately clear how badly the man was injured.

Later, an AP reporter saw a woman overcome with grief. Friends were consoling her. She screamed: “Why did they do it?” Another woman nearby fainted.

A man nearby said: “They killed my brother.”

Earlier, hundreds of people had observed four and a half minutes of silence to mark one year since 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a US police officer in the Missouri town.

The silence began at 12.02pm, the time Mr Brown was killed, with the length of time symbolising the four and a half hours that the teenager’s body lay in the street after he was killed.

Two doves were released at the end of the commemoration.

A march started at the site where Mr Brown, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on August 9 2014.

A grand jury and the US Department of Justice declined to prosecute Mr Wilson, who resigned in November, over the incident.

The shooting led to a national “Black Lives Matter” movement.