Police arrested 31 as they clashed with protesters in another night of gunfire, teargas and chaos in Ferguson 10 days after the shooting of an unarmed teenager ignited an uproar over race in America.

A massive show of force by riot police and newly arrived national guard units failed to quell agitators who fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails on Monday night and early on Tuesday morning.

Missouri national guard troops entered the protest zone and police ordered the media to leave as officers in armoured vehicles fired teargas and stun grenades and engaged with gunmen.

The mayhem dashed hopes that the deployment of the national guard, and greater community efforts to control the small minority of violent protesters, would ease a crisis which flared after a local police officer shot Michael Brown, 18, on 9 August.

At a 2.20am press conference, Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol said 31 people had been arrested, some who had come from as far afield as New York and California. He said two people were shot and displayed two handguns and a Molotov cocktail he said had been confiscated by police.

Johnson made an impassioned defence of the scale of the police response, which has come under sharp criticism. He said officers had acted with restraint against “criminal acts by a tiny minority of lawbreakers”.

Adding that police had at one point come under gunfire, and that several officers had been injured by rocks and bottles, Johnson urged peaceful protesters from now on to limit their demonstrations to daytime and not give cover to criminals at night.

“We’re going to make this neighbourhood whole, we’re going to make this community whole, and we’re going to do it together,” said Johnson, close to tears. “And I am not going to let criminals who come here from across the country or live in this community define this neighbourhood.”

Hours earlier Barack Obama distanced himself from the decision to deploy the national guard. He also dispatched the attorney general, Eric Holder, to monitor events and said he would be watching whether troops were “helping or hindering the situation”.

It is the first time the national guard has been deployed to quell civil unrest in the United States since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

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