Details of Brown’s death differed.
A witness identified as Dorian Johnson told KMOV News 4 television in St. Louis that he had been walking with Brown when a police officer confronted them and drew his weapon.
The officer shot Brown, who “turned around and put his hands in the air,” Johnson said. “He started to get down and the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and fired several more shots.”
But St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told a news conference Sunday that Brown was killed after physically assaulting a police officer and struggling to get his weapon.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the incident brought to light a lingering tension between Ferguson’s mostly white local police force and its growing African-American community.
“The death of yet another African-American at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve the community where he lived is heartbreaking,” said Cornell Williams Brooks of the NAACP civil rights organization.
Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, told KMOV TV on Sunday her first-born son had just graduated from high school.
“Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many black men graduate? Not many,” she said.
“Because you bring them down to this type of level, where they feel like they don’t got nothing to live for anyway.”
About The Author
