Mourners gather for slain black teen's funeral

Thousands of mourners filled a Baptist church here today for the funeral of a black teen whose killing by a white policeman ignited violent protests and debate on race and law enforcement in America.
Civil rights leaders and celebrities joined family and friends to pay final respects to Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot dead in a fatal encounter with white police in Ferguson, Missouri, a St Louis suburb, on August 9.
The youth's grieving family appealed for calm as they bury their son, after two weeks of protests that have riveted the nation and reopened old wounds of racial discrimination and distrust.

"Can you please, please take a day of silence, so we can lay our son to rest," his father, Michael Brown Sr, said yesterday.
Large lines formed outside the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, as hundreds of people began filling the pews of the 5,000-seat church.
Inside, mourners stopped before Brown's bronze casket, which was flanked by large portraits of him as a young man and smaller ones showing him as a baby. A Gospel choir sang hymns.

Civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson plus Missouri Governor Jay Nixon were among those in attendance.
After the funeral service, Brown is to be buried in a private ceremony in St Peter's cemetery.

The protests in Ferguson had subsided by today, but the debate over his death and what it meant continued to rage.
"We have to have a conversation, people don't want to have a conversation about race, and we need this conversation," said Jane Brandon Brown, ambassador for the Kingdom of God international ministries.
"We have to talk about the racial issues, we have to talk about the racial tensions, and then we have to talk about how we can eradicate it," she said.
Just days shy of starting college, Brown was walking down the street after leaving a convenience store where police say he stole a box of cigars, when he was shot by white policeman Darren Wilson at least six times.

Accounts of the shooting differ widely, with police alleging Brown was trying to grab Wilson's gun, but witnesses, including Brown's friend who was walking with him, said he was shot as he held his hands in the air in a clear sign of surrender.
"Hands up, don't shoot" has become the refrain of demonstrators who for the past two weeks have gathered in Ferguson to demand an open and transparent investigation and justice.