FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown Sr. stood alone in the center of the narrow street where the blood of his namesake son still stained the gray pavement, two days after the 18-year-old was shot dead by a police officer. He straightened a waist-high wooden cross and re-lit the candles erected as part of a makeshift memorial.

“Big Mike,” as some of his friends called Michael Brown Jr., wasn’t the type to fight, though he lived in a restless neighborhood where police were on frequent patrol. His parents and neighbors described him as a good-hearted kid, quiet, with an easy smile who certainly wouldn’t have condoned the violence and looting that spread though his north St. Louis suburb following his death.

Brown, who was unarmed, was shot Saturday by a Ferguson police officer while walking with a friend down the center of the street.

Police have said a scuffle broke out after the officer asked the boys to move to the side. Witnesses say Brown’s arms were in the air — in a sign of surrender — as a white policeman repeatedly shot the black youth.

After a vigil Sunday night, an angry crowd looted stores, and a night later police in Ferguson fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters. The U.S. Justice Department has announced that its civil rights division was opening an investigation, and Brown’s family retained the same lawyer who had represented relatives of Trayvon Martin — the Florida teen killed in a racially charged 2012 shooting. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton was to meet with Brown’s family today as tensions remained high.

Brown, who had recently graduated from Normandy High School, had been staying at his grandmother’s apartment, where he would often hang out in the parking lot tossing a football with friends, said Markese Mull, a neighbor whose 17-year-old-son was one of Brown’s closer friends.

Brown was an aspiring rapper, though it was more of a hobby. This week, he was supposed to start college in pursuit of a career as a heating and air conditioning engineer.