Darren Seals, a black activist who protested in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, was found shot to death in a burning vehicle in St. Louis County early Tuesday morning, according to county police.
Seals, 29, of St. Louis, was found at about 2 a.m. in the city of Riverview, one of dozens of small communities that make up St. Louis' predominantly black northern suburbs. He had suffered a single gunshot wound. Police said his first named was spelled Daren, though court records and other activists spell his name as Darren.
No suspects have been arrested or identified, and police have not suggested a motive.
Seals, who also went by the name King D. Seals, was mourned by other activists who took part in the Ferguson protests, which began when a white police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, after a struggle.
"No matter what, @KingDSeals stood for STL & Mike Brown and was a part of my Ferguson family," another protester, Ashley Yates, tweeted after news of Seals' death spread. "Rest in power."
Some activists were chilled by the resemblance of Seals' death to the unsolved killing of Deandre Joshua in Ferguson two years ago.
Joshua, 20, was also found shot dead in a burning vehicle on the night St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced that a grand jury had declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson for shooting Brown. "At this time the two homicides are not linked," St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said in an email.
In his Twitter bio, Seals described himself as a "Businessman, Revolutionary, Activist, Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa, Fighter, Leader." He was a contentious figure among the activists who gathered in Ferguson in 2014, some of whom he publicly accused of trying to "hijack" the protests.
But activists seemed to put any conflict aside in mourning his death, including DeRay Mckesson, who had been one of the most prominent targets of Seals' criticism.
"We can live in a world where people don't die by violence," tweeted Mckesson, one of the most well-known figures to emerge from the protests in Ferguson, who would later mount an unsuccessful bid to be mayor of Baltimore. "Nobody deserves to die. We did not always agree, but he should be alive today."
St. Louis rapper Tef Poe tweeted that he had last spoken to Seals two weeks ago, but was busy and forgot to call him back. He said he cried after he found out Seals was dead Tuesday morning.
"He loved the city and he loved the fact that we accomplished something no else had done in this lifetime," Poe wrote in a caption for an Instagram post that included Seals posing for a photo with prominent black intellectual Cornel West, who came to Ferguson to protest.
"He was a controversial figure so some people might shy away from shouting him out. Not Me. When it was go time he was always there. Nobody can take that from him," Poe wrote.
"Damn D.Seals a wild boy for life but he really believed in Saint Louis. I'm still in disbelief."
