USA | Ferguson mourns black teen shot by police

Mourners gathered to remember Michael Brown in an emotional service that consecrated the killing of the black 18-year-old by a white police officer as another in the long history of the civil rights movement, and implored black Americans to change their protest chants into law.
The crowd of more than 4,500 people Monday (yesterday in Macau) included the parents of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old African-American fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, along with a cousin of Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old murdered by several white men while visiting Mississippi in 1955. Till’s killing galvanized the civil rights movement.
“Show up at the voting booths. Let your voices be heard, and let everyone know that we have had enough of all of this,” said Eric Davis, one of Brown’s cousins.
Also in attendance were several White House aides, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, moviemaker Spike Lee, entertainer Sean Combs and some children of the Rev. Martin Luther King.
Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton showed up at the funeral to call for a movement that seeks to clean up police forces and the communities they serve.
“We’re not anti-police. We respect police. But those police that are wrong need to be dealt with just like those in our community that are wrong need to be dealt with,” Sharpton said.
Two uncles remembered how Brown had once predicted that someday the whole world would know his name.
“He did not know he was offering up a divine prophecy,” Bernard Ewing said.
Poster-size photos of Brown, wearing headphones, were on each side of the casket, which had a St. Louis Cardinals ball cap atop it. Large projection screens showed a photo of him clutching his high school diploma while wearing a cap and gown. Two days after his death, he had been scheduled to start training to become a heating and air-conditioning technician.
Brown, who was to be buried in a St. Louis cemetery, was unarmed when he was killed. A grand jury is considering evidence in the case, and a federal investigation is also underway. AP

Jim Suhr, St Louis