The day after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer, Syreeta Myers drove from her South City home to the northwest suburb of Ferguson. She marched on the street demanding justice for Brown's death. She wanted to stand by his parents. 

Two months later, Brown's father was calling her. This time, it was Myers who was receiving support. 

Like the Browns, she had lost a son. 

VonDerrit Myers Jr. was 18, just like Michael Brown. He was a young black man killed by a white police officer. 

"My issue is with crooked cops who won't hesitate to kill a black man," Syreeta Myers tells me on this dreary Sunday afternoon. 

Brown was unarmed, and the grand jury investigating his killing is expected to make a decision any day now on whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Myers hopes her son's case will also be investigated to sort out opposing sides of the story. 

"Picture if this was your kid. What would you want?" she would like to tell the grand jurors. "Base your decision on the facts." 

Just as in Brown's case, the facts in Myers' killing are disputed. And Myers' case is far more complicated. At issue is whether or not a teenager who had a history with guns tried to shoot a police officer. 

Police say that the October 8 confrontation in the city's Shaw neighborhood began when Myers and two others ran from an off-duty police officer working for a private security firm. 

Police have not released the officer's name, but Jermaine Wooten, an attorney for the Myers family, identified him. Wooten says the name was included in an evidence sheet inadvertently left with VonDerrit Myers' body when it was brought to the funeral home. 
How old was Michael Brown at the time of his death?
VonDerrit Myers Jr. was 18, just like Michael Brown.