Eleven years after the police killing of Michael Brown set off national protests against racial injustice, the friend who was with Brown during his final moments has been shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri.

CNN reports that Dorian Johnson, 33, was fatally shot around 8:30 a.m. Sunday at an apartment complex less than a mile from where Brown died, according to Ferguson Police spokesperson Patricia Washington. Johnson’s account of the 2014 incident played a pivotal role in inspiring the “hands up, don’t shoot” chant that became a defining rallying cry during demonstrations across the country.

Authorities said one person was initially taken into custody but later released without charges. St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Melissa Price Smith described the case as appearing to be “a domestic incident involving a claim of self-defense,” while noting that the investigation is ongoing.

Ferguson police emphasized that Johnson’s death was not connected to law enforcement. “There had been earlier rumors that this was an officer-involved shooting however that information is incorrect. No officers, Ferguson or otherwise, were involved in this incident other than to begin our investigation,” the department said in a statement.

Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black man, was shot by White officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Wilson claimed he fired in self-defense as Brown charged toward him. Johnson said he was at Brown’s side when the officer confronted them, describing how an initial altercation through the police car’s window ended with Brown being shot in the hand before both young men ran. Federal investigators later said Brown turned back toward Wilson before the fatal shots. Johnson stated Brown had his hands raised in surrender, though the Justice Department noted witness accounts varied on Brown’s exact movements.

Johnson’s telling of events helped fuel the protest chant that spread across the nation. Even though federal investigators declined to indict Wilson, a separate Justice Department civil rights probe found that Ferguson’s police and municipal court engaged in systemic discrimination against Black residents.