Michael Brown, a recent high school graduate who was scheduled to begin classes at college on Monday, was killed in Ferguson, a city in St. Louis country that has about 21,000 residents, two-thirds of whom are black.

An eyewitness told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she saw a police officer trying to put Brown in a squad car. Then the teen attempted to flee and was hit with several shots as he ran, she said.

Brown's grandmother, Desiree Harris told AP that the young man was running around the neighborhood at the time he was killed.

"He was running this way," she said. "When I got up there, my grandson was lying on the pavement. I asked the police what happened. They didn't tell me nothing."