Suspect pleads not guilty in shooting of two Ferguson police officers

(Reuters) - A man accused of wounding two policemen during a protest rally in March outside police headquarters in Ferguson, Missouri, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Wednesday, the St. Louis County Circuit Court administrative director said. Jeffrey Williams faces first-degree felony assault charges and gun violations after a police officer was shot in the face and another in the shoulder on March 12 as they monitored the protest in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, authorities have said. The shootings occurred at the end of the rally, which called for sweeping reforms in Ferguson, where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot in August 2014 by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Wilson in November. Brown's death touched off months of protests in Ferguson and across the country over the treatment of minority groups by law enforcement agencies and led to a U.S. Justice Department probe that found pervasive racial bias on the part of the city's mostly white police force. Williams admitted to firing the shots that wounded the officers, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch has said. McCulloch has said Williams was in a car when he fired a .40-caliber handgun, which was recovered in his residence and matched shell casings found at the scene. The case against Williams was assigned to a judge on Wednesday but no date has been set for the next appearance, the court official, Paul Fox, said. Williams' attorney, Jerryl Christmas, has said his client has been wrongly accused and was beaten by police when he was taken into custody. Williams, who is being held on a $300,000 bond, could face life in prison if convicted on the assault charges. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Mo.; Editing by Peter Cooney)