Photos: Sickening moment hit-and-run driver smashes through crowd of Ferguson protesters

                                                                           

                                                                             

         This is the sickening moment a hit-and-run driver smashed into a crowd of Ferguson protesters in Minnesota, before dragging a woman 20 feet under his front wheel and running over her leg.

        The motorist, who has not been identified, was captured on video speeding toward the group in a dark-colored Subaru Outback during a march and rally in Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon.

He plowed into demonstrators, before smashing into a woman and carrying her along the road under his front-left wheel, while another protester who also struck by the vehicle desperately clung to its hood.As bystanders screamed loudly and rushed to the woman's aid, the car briefly stopped, before driving off. However, it came to a halt further down the road and the driver was reportedly taken into custody. 

       The incident, filmed by KSTP's Chopper 5, occurred a day after the grand jury's decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown in the suburb of Ferguson in St Louis, Missouri, on August 9 was announced.It also came as tens of thousands of people in more than 170 cities across America - including Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles, among others - were demonstrating against the long-awaited verdict for a second night. In the Minneapolis crash at 4.30pm local time, the woman, who has not been named, was attended to by paramedics in the intersection near the Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd Precinct headquarters at Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue.

    She was later taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul with 'very minor injuries', police told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She is believed to have since been released. Meanwhile, the driver is currently being questioned by police, although no formal charges have been filed against him.

The incident came just a day after St Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch declared that the jury of seven men and five women found 'no probable cause exists' to indict Wilson in the shooting, which made headlines across the world.

      Following the hit-and-run, about 200 protesters gathered on the state capitol steps in St. Paul and marched in protest at the secret panel's verdict.