Michael Brown's mother speaks out about Ferguson: 'This is how my son was shot'

The mother of Michael Brown has explained how she believes her son died at the hands of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, arguing that he was "running for his life" and posed no threat whatsoever.

Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, and father, Michael Brown Sr., spoke to PBS’ Charlie Rose on Wednesday following a Missouri grand jury's verdict not to indict Wilson, a white man, for killing her unarmed black son on 9 August.

National Guardsmen and police tried to halt a third successive night of violence on Wednesday evening in Ferguson due to the public outcry at the grand jury verdict. Over 400 people have now been arrested in the St. Louis suburb and around the United States.

McSpadden told Charlie Rose said that Wilson approached her son in his car as he crossed the street and that Brown told him he was almost at his house. She claimed that Wilson then turned his vehicle to stop traffic and get closer to her son, opening the car and hitting him with the driver's door.

She said Wilson tried "to grab with him (Brown) and making contact to the point where he's pulling him towards him and my son is trying to get away. And as he (Brown) tries to get away and get him off of him, he (Wilson) tells him, 'I'll shoot you.'"

She continued, "My son was running for his life and as his father has said before, he's had a conversation with him about how to deal with the authorities if you're approached, which was to obey. If they ask you to do something, you have to do it. I believe that he (Wilson) asked my son to stop and I believe that's what he did. He stopped and he turned around to get on his knees like the officer asked him.

"I believe he was shot close up and I don't think my son was lunging at him in any kind of way because the way the bullet enters his body and the things that was doing inside his body as he was constantly shooting him, there was no way he had any strength or energy to lunge at him at all."

Brown's mother's account of how her son died comes after Wilson gave an interview with ABC News earlier this week, insisting he had a "clean conscience" because he did his "job right".

Repeating his recent testimony to the grand jury, Officer Wilson claimed that as they tussled and he threatened to shoot Mr Brown, the 18-year-old told him, "You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me". After one shot went off inside the vehicle, Brown ran away. Wilson gave chase, he said, only for Mr Brown to stop, turn and charge towards him.

McSpadden said that he account of the event that led to the death of her son was based upon eye witness reports from both friends in the community and complete strangers who had come forward to tell her what they had seen unfold.

"There was a lot of people that I didn't know, that I still don't know , but they saw things and they was just compelled to let us know what they saw, because they knew that this kid did not deserve what happened to him, and they didn't know my son from Adam," she said.

Civil rights activists on Wednesday said they had been assured by the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, that the Obama administration would investigate police practices in Ferguson.