Activist groups, meanwhile, said the plain-clothes officers who shot Harris should never have been deployed to the scene.
“The core idea of the group is that its members vow to forever support the oaths they took on joining law enforcement or the military to defend the Constitution”, reads the SPLC site. Schellman says there were no similar incidents Tuesday.
On Instagram, observers attempted to depict the tension between Oath Keepers and protesters in Ferguson.
On Tuesday night, none appeared to have long rifles. Those gathered outside the station held a die-in, chalked outlines of bodies with the names of people killed by police and sang “Which Side Are You On?”
Police officers, most of whom wore riot gear, outnumbered protesters.
Oath Keepers previously showed up in Ferguson in November after a grand jury declined to indict former Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s death, saying they stationed themselves along several downtown rooftops to protect businesses from rioting and looters.
St. Louis County Police said a video that they released Tuesday showed a suspect, charged with shooting at police in the strife-torn city of Ferguson, drawing a pistol from the waistband of his trousers.
In the video, shots are fired and a young man can be seen brandishing what looks like a pistol.
The 18-year-old remains in a critical condition in hospital.
Officials in St. Louis County, Missouri, have extended a state of emergency that covers the city of Ferguson for at least another 24 hours, following protests earlier this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of a black teenager by a white police officer. Plainclothed detectives in an unmarked police vehicle then trailed Harris who is alleged to have shot at their vehicle before the detectives got out.
The violence, according to Belmar, erupted on Sunday when two groups of agitators apparently began shooting at each other, disputing what had been peaceful demonstrations.
Belmar plans to ask county prosecutor Bob McCulloch about the legality of the group’s armed patrols.
Twenty-two people were arrested on or near the street, where there have been dozens of tense standoffs since last summer when Brown’s death spurred wide protests, some of which were violent.
Harris’s father has said his son did not have a gun.
A state of emergency was declared in Ferguson on Monday after clashes between police and protesters marking a year since Mr Brown was shot dead.
The crowd marched, chanted and at times confronted police. Separately, some police reported rocks being thrown at them but “police did not take an action, and soon after the rock throwing stopped”. He says no one was injured.
But Senger pointed out that until he and the county prosecuting attorney can find a way to keep the Oath Keepers out of Ferguson, they can still walk around the protests with their guns. “The reality is that the status quo didn’t just happen overnight, the status quo [developed] over many years and people work hard to reinforce it, including the police”.