LOUIS, MO, AUGUST 26 (RIA Novosti) – A friend of the mother of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teen who was shot and killed by police, says the bereaved family are "broken up" by the 18-year-old’s funeral.
"It’s been very hard. We’re giving her time to breath. I don’t think they’re handling it too well. They’re broken up inside. Especially the mum, she hasn’t had any rest," Venus Johnson Matthews told RIA Novosti after the service.
Matthews described Brown as a decent young man who came from a religious family – at odds with the character description from police, who released a video purportedly showing Brown assault a liquor store employee during a theft.
"I haven’t seen him since he was a young boy. But I hadn’t lost the love and friendship for him," added Matthews, 35, a nurse from St Louis who has known the family for several years. "Nobody is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s called being human.
"The service was very moving, they spoke about a lot of emotional issues. The turnout was massive and it shows how all we want is peace and justice. We have been shown up to be violent people – but were not, not all of us."
Thousands of mourners attended the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church for a funeral service of Gospel music, rousing sermons and calls for change in a mostly-black community in which residents rail against harassment by a white-dominated police force.
Ferguson, a suburb of St Louis of some 21,000 residents, has been riven by often-violent protests since Brown’s death on August 9.
A grand jury is hearing evidence about Brown’s shooting and is expected to decide whether to charge lawman Darren Wilson by mid-October. The inquiry hinges on whether Wilson, 28, fired in self-defense.
Missouri National Guard troops have begun withdrawing from Ferguson as protests have calmed in recent nights. Police have been criticized for using military tactics, toting assault rifles and using tear gas, rubber bullets and other heavy-handed measures.
