Edward Crawford is the name of the Ferguson protester caught in the photograph, hurling a tear gas canister during the Ferguson protest in 2014. This picture of Crawford has become one of the most iconic moments of the Ferguson protest captured on camera.
Crawford had been found dead recently. According to his father, Edward Sr., died of a gunshot wound.
He was 27-years-old. The police are threating the gunshot wound as as being “self-inflicted.”
Crawford senior is refuting any claim or insinuation of suicide, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that his son was in “good spirits”, in the midst of training for a new job and moving into a new apartment.
Crawford is the second high profile Ferguson protester to be found dead under suspicious circumstances.
Darren Seals, another well-known activist, was found shot dead in a burning car in September 2016. His case remains unsolved.
The photographer of Crawford launching the burning tear gas caught, by Robert Cohen, became one of the defining moments of the 2014 protest. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a member of the Missouri Senate, tweeted her belief that Ferguson protesters are being hunted.
