Thousands pay respects to Ferguson teenager

Relatives said goodbye yesterday to the 18-year-old unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a police officer, remembering him as a "gentle soul" with a deep and growing faith in Christianity and ambitions that one day "the world would know his name".

Thousands of mourners filled the massive Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St Louis, Missouri for the upbeat funeral.

Brown’s killing on August 9 ignited almost two weeks of racially charged street protests in Ferguson, a St Louis suburb.

The young man was unarmed when he was shot by officer Darren Wilson, who is white. A grand jury is considering evidence in the case, and a federal investigation is also under way.

Police have said a scuffle broke out after Wilson told Brown and a friend to move out of the street and onto a pavement in Ferguson, a St Louis suburb. Police said Wilson was pushed into his squad car and physically assaulted. Some witnesses have reported seeing Brown’s arms in the air — an act of surrender. An autopsy found Brown was shot at least six times.

President Barack Obama sent three White House aides to the funeral.

America’ first black president has tried to strike a balanced tone on the shooting, calling both for respect for police and reflection on the plight of young black men in America who feel unfairly targeted by police.

In the aftermath of the shooting, images of well-armed suburban police officers confronting protesters in Ferguson with tear gas and rubber bullets prompted widespread criticism of how police have used federal grants to obtain military gear from the Pentagon. Obama ordered the White House to conduct a review of those programmes. Eric Davis, one of Brown’s cousins, urged the crowd at the funeral to go to the polls and push for change, saying the community had had “enough of the senseless killings”.

An uncle, pastor Charles Ewing, said in his eulogy that Brown’s “blood is crying from the ground, crying for vengeance, crying for justice.”

The Rev Al Sharpton, the Rev Jesse Jackson, Sean Combs and moviemaker Spike Lee all attended.

Also present were the parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old fatally shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012, along with a cousin of Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old murdered by several white men in Mississippi in 1955. Till’s killing galvanised the US civil rights movement.