Story highlights The photo was taken during violence in Ferguson, Missouri

Edward Crawford's uncle says he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound

(CNN) It's powerful. It's visceral. It's seared in our memory as one of the iconic images from those turbulent nights that followed a black man's death at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri.

It's the photograph of Edward Crawford, clutching a bag of chips in one hand as he cocks his arm back to throw a burning tear gas canister that riot police had fired to disperse protesters like Crawford. The photo was taken four days after Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, and the city had erupted in protest.

Crawford has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his uncle, Lester Davis, confirmed to CNN on Friday. St. Louis coroner's assistant Baxter Leisure said that a man with Crawford's name had died.

Crawford's uncle said he didn't believe the death was suicide.

This Aug. 13, 2014, photo by St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen shows Edward Crawford returning a tear gas canister fired by police who were trying to disperse protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. Four days earlier, unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by white police officer Darren Wilson. The killing ignited riots and unrest in the St. Louis area and across the nation. Cohen and members of the St. Louis Post Dispatch photo staff are winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography it was announced Monday, April 20, 2015, at Columbia University in New York.

"I don't want people to think it's some conspiracy theory," Davis said. "I don't believe my nephew killed himself either, maybe it was an accident."

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