MOSCOW, November 25 (Sputnik) — A producer working for RT TV channel's video news agency Ruptly, injured during the recent protests in the US city of Ferguson, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday she expected the police to resort to tear gas.
"We all expected the police to react in this way to the protesters. They started firing teargas in order to disperse people, and I was in the middle of everything," Lorena de la Cuesta said.
Violent protests erupted in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson after a grand jury chose not to press charges against white police officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown in August.
"I was walking with the protesters, and then suddenly everyone started running the opposite direction, because the police were coming … I felt a huge impact on my leg, and I realized it was a tear gas canister. It exploded and the gas came out, so my eyes were burning and I couldn't breathe," the producer said describing the events in Ferguson. De la Cuesta also stressed that the police were not targeting journalists in particular.
She also confirmed that her injury was not serious and that she did not require medical assistance.
According to the local newspaper the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the protests, which have seen the torching of police vehicles and the setting of businesses on fire, have left 13 people injured and 61 arrested.
