Ferguson unrest: Two shot near where Michael Brown died, after teenager left fighting for life following police gunfight

Tyrone Harris was shot hours before

St. Louis County police officers respond in an MRAD vehicle after shots were fired during a protest march on August 9, 2015 on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Missouri (Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images)

Two teenagers have been shot near the spot where Michael Brown died last year, hours after a teenager was left fighting for his life following a gunfight with police.

A 17-year-old and a 19-year-old were shot at the Canfield Apartment complex at around 2am, where white police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown on 9 August 2014.

The younger teenager was hit in the chest and shoulder area, and the 19-year-old suffered a wound to his chest, St Louis County police officer Shawn McGuire said in a statement.

The victims told police officers they were walking by the memorial for Brown when a vehicle drove past and an African American male in a red hoodie started shooting at them.

The pair were rushed to hospital and are being treated for non-life threatening injures.

Around two hours before, Tyrone Harris, 18, was shot after he became engaged in a gunfight with St Louis County police, the department chief Jon Belmar told a press conference.

The teenager has since received emergency surgery at a local hospital.

Belmar told reporters that two small groups were engaged in a shooting outside the protest at West Florissant square.

Without formally naming Harris as the victim, he said that a man walked from the gunfight towards police, and fired on four plain-clothed officers sitting in an unmarked car.

The incident culminated in the four police officers – who were not wearing body cameras – shooting the man.

Harris was then rushed to hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery.

“They were criminals. They weren't protesters. There is a small group of people out there that are intent on making sure that we don't have peace that prevail," Belmar told reporters.

But Harris' father told the St Louis Post-Dispatch: “We think there's a lot more to this than what's being said.”

”We can't sustain this as a community,“ he said.

Additional reporting by AP