POLICE used tear gas and smoke bombs to repel hundreds of protesters during a fourth night of confrontation in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson today.

Hours earlier Police Chief Thomas Jackson had said race relations were the top priority in the town, where a white police officer killed unarmed black man Michael Brown. 

But on the streets of Ferguson the polite dialogue heard at community forums and news conferences was nowhere to be found.

Instead, officers in riot gear and military equipment have clashed nightly with hundreds of mainly black protesters, who chant: “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

There were more tense confrontations on Wednesday night and early this morning, with police firing further volleys of tear gas — this time paired with smoke bombs in response to Molotov cocktails and other objects lobbed from the crowd.

Protesters faced heavily armed police who at times trained weapons on them from armoured trucks.

Local press reported that about 10 people had been arrested, including St Louis councillor Antonio French, who has been chronicling the protests on social media.

Ferguson residents have complained of a heavy-handed police presence that began with the use of dogs for crowd control soon after the shooting.

The city and county are also facing criticism for refusing to release the name of the officer involved in the shooting — though internet vigilante group Anonymous has reportedly threatened to do so if police will not.

Around 66 per cent of Ferguson residents are black, while over 94 per cent of the suburb’s police officers are white.