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| It began when two white St. Petersburg police officers pulled over a Pontiac LeMans and ordered the driver, a young black man, to get out. He didn’t. When the car began to move toward Officer James Knight, he fired through the windshield, killing 18-year-old TyRon Lewis. A crowd gathered, saying the shooting was unjustified. In this photograph, Officer Eric Holmes, center, fends off a man who had started toward another officer. The man relented, but then bricks began to fly. Several officers were hurt and many buildings torched in the two nights of violence that followed. A grand jury cleared Knight, but Holmes still senses the distrust of the black community, where he has spent his entire 10-year career. “It was a shame,” he says. “Unfortunately, I think people responded to rumor and not fact.”
• DAYS OF RAGE |
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