FERGUSON: Residents in the suburban St. Louis neighborhoods near where an officer killed an 18-year-old teenager say their lives have been upended in the last two weeks.

Angelia Dickens says she has been afraid to leave her Ferguson apartment at night as protesters clash with police. She says she hopes she can “get up Monday and start a fresh week at work.”

Many residents say they feel trapped in the neighborhood because of street closures and barricades. Many stores are boarded up after looting. One salon owner says business has plummeted since the shooting.

For a third consecutive night, restraint prevailed at protests on Friday in Ferguson, Missouri, as the National Guard began withdrawing from the St. Louis suburb.

Hundreds of protesters marched in the hot summer night near the site of the Aug. 9 slaying of 18-year-old Michael Brown, chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot,” while police vehicles observed the demonstration, without intervening.

After dwindling in numbers, the protesters, marshaled by volunteers from the clergy, made their way to a parking lot across from the police station, where they prayed and chanted while about 20 officers stood in a line outside.

Earlier at St. Mark Family Church, a hub for protest organizers, activists and residents met to pray and work on plans to improve the predominantly African American community of 21,000 in the wake of unrest that has focused international attention on often-troubled U.S. race relations.

Despite a notable easing of tensions in recent days — police made only a handful of arrests on Wednesday and Thursday — authorities braced for a possible flare-up of civil disturbances ahead of Brown’s funeral, which is planned for Monday.