A Ferguson, Missouri, cop was critically injured outside the city’s police station during violent protests on the 10th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

The attack prompted Ferguson police chief Troy Doyle to go off-script during an emotional press conference in which he ripped the Black Lives Matter demonstrators for perpetuating the violence despite the department bending to their demands.

Officer Travis Brown suffered a severe brain injury Friday after being knocked to the ground.

“He is in an area hospital right now fighting for his life,” said Doyle.

Two other officers also were hurt, one sustaining an ankle injury and another an abrasion. Both were treated at the scene.

The team of officers went out to make arrests Friday for destruction of property at the police station, where protesters gathered to remember Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old who was killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in 2014. 

Michael Brown’s killing became a pivotal moment in the early days of the national Black Lives Matter movement.

A visibly frustrated Doyle told reporters he would be veering from his prepared remarks.

“The Ferguson Police Department since 2014 has been a punching bag for this community,” he said, pointing out that none of the cops who were on the job when Michael Brown was killed were still with the department.

“So what are you protesting?”

He then described how the department has bent over backwards to deliver “everything the activist community has advocated for,” rattling off a list of departmental changes made in direct response to their feedback.

“Body-worn cameras, implicit bias training, crisis intervention training … we even changed the uniforms at this department because people said the old uniforms triggered them. What are we doing?” he asked.

“Ten years later I got an officer fighting for his life. It’s enough and I’m done with it. We’re not doing it here in Ferguson. We want to heal. Our community wants to heal.”

Doyle said that he wanted people to be able to peacefully protest, but drew the line at acts of violence like what happened Saturday.

“We damn sure ain’t gonna allow you to destroy this city, and we ain’t gonna allow you to hurt none of these police officers,” he said.

Doyle said that for the majority of the night, the protesters were peaceful. He said police allowed them to block the street outside the station, posting a squad car on each end, so they wouldn’t be hit by vehicles.

Police also didn’t intervene when the protesters began shaking the fence outside the station. But he said that when they broke a section of fencing, he sent out the arrest team.

The suspect who charged at Travis Brown knocked him backward with his shoulder, and the officer hit his head as he tumbled to the ground, Doyle said.

Court records said the suspect then kept running and kicked two officers who tried to arrest him, leaving them with scratches and bruises.

Doyle said Officer Travis Brown, who is black, started with the department in January and previously worked for the St. Louis County Police Department.

He is part of a wave of black officers hired into the department since 2014. Back then, there were just three black officers in the department, but black officers now make up more than half of the police force, Doyle said.

“He wanted to be part of the change,” Doyle said. “He wanted to make an impact in our community. He’s the type of officer that we want in our community. And what happens? He gets assaulted. I had to look his mother in the eye and tell her what happened to her son. I’m never going to do that again, I promise you that.”

St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell, who had stopped by the hospital beforehand to meet with the officer’s family, said others also would be charged.

“I always talk about you know the toughest part of this job is when we have a family that’s lost a loved one that we can’t bring justice to. And I’ve got to tweak that. The toughest thing I’ve had to do is talk and console with a mother who doesn’t know if her child is doing to make it. And for what?”

The Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading civil rights activist, urged the police chief to move with caution and “not to create an us versus them mentality.”

“Right now,” Gray added, “all of our efforts and energy need to be positive towards the recovery of the police officer. And then second to that, to do an investigation, a fair and unbiased investigation to determine what the evidence is.”

The arrests came as the St. Louis Fire Department placed a member of the department on leave after he made a social media post that the department described as insensitive.

“We take this matter seriously and do not condone such behavior,” the department wrote.

The department didn’t disclose the contents of the post, but several news outlets in the area reported that it read: “Happy ALIVE day to Darren Wilson!”

Michael Brown’s death turned Ferguson into a focal point of the national reckoning with the historically tense relationship between US law enforcement and black people.

In 2015, an investigation by the US Department of Justice also found no grounds to prosecute Wilson. But the report gave a scathing indictment of the police department — and raised concerns about how its officers treated black suspects and about a court system that created a cycle of debt for many.

One of the arrested protesters was charged Saturday with assault of a special victim, resisting arrest and property damage.

He was ordered held on $500,000 cash only bond. No information was immediately listed in online court records, so it wasn’t known if he had an attorney yet.

With Post wires