Police Chief Thomas Jackson said on Wednesday the officer involved in the shooting of a black, unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., last weekend was injured during the incident and treated in the hospital for swelling on the side of his face.
The officer involved has not been named.
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Jackson told a news conference he could not release any more information on the shooting because witness statements are still coming in.
Jackson said the priority for the town of Ferguson is improving race relations that have been badly damaged by the shooting in the largely black town with a mostly white police force.
He said his department was always trying to improve diversity in its ranks.
"It is a constant struggle to hire and retain personnel," he said.
Police shoot protester
About 40 protesters have been arrested since Saturday.
Jackson said his department was always trying to improve diversity in its ranks.
"It is a constant struggle to hire and retain personnel," he said.
The police chief urged demonstrators to rally only during daylight hours. He said it was not a curfew and said that protesters could get their point across with peaceful demonstrations.
Early Wednesday night, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly said they were arrested at the local McDonald's.
Both took to social media and stated that they were never given a reason by police why they were being detained before being subsequently released.
The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting that occurred on Aug. 9, and St. Louis County also is investigating. Residents in the low-income, mostly black neighbourhood where Brown was killed say they are often harassed by police.
Jackson said the neighbourhood had a lot of crime but there were no race problems. Ferguson has seen a stark demographic shift in recent decades, going from all white to mostly black. About two-thirds of the town's 21,000-strong population are black. On a police force of 53, three officers are black.
Witnesses say the officer was white.
The police have said that the shooting followed a struggle between the officer and Brown. But a witness who was walking with Brown at the time, has said in media interviews that Brown put his hands in the air and was not struggling with the officer.
Police have declined to release the name of the officer involved in the incident, citing concerns for his safety, a decision that has been sharply criticized by demonstrators who have asked for more transparency. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.
"Race relations are our top priority," Jackson said.
"This is an opportunity to fix what's wrong. We're working on finding ways to get involved with the community," he added.
Jackson said that the U.S. Department of Justice was advising Ferguson officials on how to improve relations with the community and would work with civil rights groups to help set up a meeting between the victim's family and police.
"We want to get this right," Jackson said of the investigation, which he said would last two weeks.
A demonstrator throws back a tear gas container after tactical officers trying to break up a group of bystanders early Wednesday in West Florissant, Mo. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/The Associated Press)
After Tuesday night's protests were broken up by tear gas, a St. Louis County Police officer shot and critically wounded a 19-year-old male who allegedly pointed a gun at the officer. The man who was shot had been involved with the earlier protests, police said.
The incident occurred just hours after President Obama, black civil rights leader Al Sharpton, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon called for peaceful protests.
Anonymous group demands action
On social media, groups claiming to be associated with the Anonymous hacker activist group called for nationwide protests and threatened to reveal personal information about Ferguson police officers.
The Ferguson police said there have been attempts to hack their website and that it was temporarily disrupted.
Anonymous groups, using Twitter names @TheAnonMessage and @OpFerguson, posted a two-hour audio file they said was of dispatch centre conversations after Brown was shot. St. Louis County Police Department spokesman Brian Schellman said the police response to the incident is part of the investigation.
On the recording a dispatcher is heard telling another dispatcher that she is learning of the officer-involved shooting through reporters who were calling. The dispatchers were not heard requesting rescue personnel to respond but did send K-9 units and more police to the scene to control the crowd.
