CHICAGO: Rock giants U2 and pop star Ed Sheeran have called off concerts in St. Louis, as the US city braced Sunday for a second day of protests over the acquittal of a former police officer in the shooting death of a black man.
The Irish rock band and entertainment firm Live Nation announced the Saturday show’s cancelation in a statement citing concerns about fans’ security.
“We have been informed by the St. Louis Police Department that they are not in a position to provide the standard protection for our audience as would be expected for an event of this size,” they said.
“We cannot in good conscience risk our fans’ safety by proceeding with tonight’s concert. As much as we regret having to cancel, we feel it is the only acceptable course of action in the current environment.”
And Briton Sheeran announced he was pulling the plug on his show, set for a different St. Louis venue Sunday, amid the protests.
A judge in the Missouri city Friday found a white former police officer, Jason Stockley, not guilty of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith, a suspected drug dealer, following a high-speed chase in 2011.
The case has drawn a lot of attention in St. Louis, where racial tensions have been high since the 2014 killing of a black man in the city’s suburb of Ferguson by a white police officer.
In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stockley said he understands how the video of him fatally shooting Smith looks bad to investigators and the public.
“I can feel for and I understand what the family is going through, and I know everyone wants someone to blame, but I’m just not the guy,” he said.
Hundreds of people turned out for initially peaceful protests after the verdict, but the situation turned violent Friday night, leading police to break up the crowd with tear gas.
Ten officers were injured in the standoff with rock-throwing protesters, according to St. Louis police who made at least 23 arrests.
On Saturday, protesters gathered at a park and then marched through two St. Louis shopping malls, chanting “the whole damn system is guilty as hell.”
“I can feel for and I understand what the family is going through, and I know everyone wants someone to blame, but I’m just not the guy,” Stockley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Stockley, 36, shot Smith, 24, five times December 20, 2011 after a car chase that followed a suspected drug deal.
He was caught on an in-car camera video telling his partner, Brian Bianchi, “Going to kill this (expletive) don’t you know it.
Prosecutors brought first degree murder charges in 2016, alleging that Stockley’s comments to his partner showed premeditation and alleging he planted a gun in Smith’s car after the shooting.
On Friday, Judge Timothy Wilson acquitted Stockley, concluding there was no evidence he had planted the gun and that his video-taped comment lacked context because the portions before and after were inaudible.
U2, Sheeran cancel concerts in protest-hit St. Louis
U2, Sheeran cancel concerts in protest-hit St. Louis
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
