A crowdfunding website set up for a white police officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black Missouri teen set off days of protests topped out at $235,000 Friday.
But the fundraising will continue for Ferguson, Missouri, Officer Darren Wilson through another
GoFundMe.com site tied to a nonprofit charity, making donations tax-deductible, organizers said.
By Friday night, the new site
had already raked in about $37,000.
Once "we located the local charitable foundation, Shield of Hope… we began working together to have a GoFundMe page set up to collect and disburse donations," the organizers wrote on the original site.
The fundraising has not been without controversy, with outrage at some racially charged comments posted by donors on the site,
NBC News reported.
GoFundMe tweeted the comments were removed.
A crowdfunding campaign
also is underway for the family of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
As of Friday night, the site had collected $183,205.
Wilson has been on paid administrative leave since Brown's slaying Aug. 9.
A spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch told
The Washington Post on Thursday he still hadn't spoken directly with Wilson.
Prosecutors began presenting evidence to the St. Louis County grand jury Wednesday, and Wilson will be given a chance to appear before the panel, the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, the streets of the St. Louis suburb were relatively quiet Wednesday and Thursday nights,
USA Today reported.
Attorney General
Eric Holder visited the troubled town Wednesday, vowing the Justice Department intended "to learn… exactly what happened."
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