U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement denouncing the man charged with shooting two St. Louis police officers during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri last week.

The incident occurred just after midnight on Thursday as a small crowd of protesters began to disperse from a peaceful demonstration that began on Wednesday.

According to officials, Jeffrey Williams, 20, was among the crowd of demonstrators when he opened fire on officers standing in front the Ferguson Police Department. Fortunately, the two officers who were hit did not suffer from life-threatening injuries and were released from the hospital Thursday morning, reports ABC News.

After being arrested late Saturday, Williams told officials that he was not targeting the officers when he open fired. Instead, he says that he shot the cops by accident while he was aiming for someone else.

"It is possible that he was firing at someone other than the police," St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch said at a press conference Sunday afternoon, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "He has stated that he may have had a dispute with some other individuals. I'm not sure we completely buy that part of it. But in any event, it's possible he was firing at some other people."

McCulloch, however, said that officials are questioning the credibility of his story.

"We're not 100 percent sure that there was a dispute. That's part of the claim right now. It's possible that there was a dispute. It's possible that he was targeting police officers. We just have to wait for the investigation to develop."

The accused shooter also told investigators that he had a confrontation with some people outside the police station that had nothing to do with the rally, officials said.

Williams has been charged with first-degree assault and is being held in jail on a $300,000 bond, reports The New York Times.

In a statement, Holder said that Williams' arrest "sends a clear message that acts of violence against our law enforcement personnel will never be tolerated. The swiftness of this action is a credit to the significant cooperation between federal authorities and the St. Louis County Police Department."

The shootings come after months of protests and outrage demanding justice for Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager who was shot by a white cop in August 2014. Although former Officer Darren Wilson was not charged in the shooting, the Justice Department released a scathing report that revealed the Ferguson Police Department was guilty of systemic racism against African-American residents in the St. Louis suburb.