The grandson of slain civil rights activist Malcolm X was killed Thursday while on a trip to Mexico. Investigators are looking into the murder but so far the events that led to the young man's death are unclear.

Family friend Terrie Williams verified that the reports on his murder are true, tweeting "I'm informing, per the U.S. Embassy, on behalf of the family, the tragic death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X."

Shabazz, 28, is believed to have been killed on Thursday night in Mexico City. While Mexican authorities have not confirmed any details, an acquaintance has said his death was the result of a bar fight.

"He was murdered. He was in Mexico City and I believe they attempted to rob him and he didn't allow it, so they beat him to death and he died on the way to the hospital," said Juan Ruiz, a member of California-based labor organization Rumec. "This is all I can confirm, everything else is under investigation for the meantime."

Shabazz had travelled to Mexico to meet with Rumec's leader Miguel Suarez, who had been deported to Mexico from the United States last month. Suarez was reportedly with Shabazz the night he was killed.

According to Suarez, he and Shabazz, along with a group of friends had gone to a bar in downtown Mexico City. While there, a fight is said to have occurred as the result of a dispute over a bar tab. Suarez says that after the fight ended he found his friend injured outside the bar and that he was then taken to the hospital, where he later died.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement on Shabazz's death, confirming only that an American citizen was killed in Mexico City.

"We have been in contact with family members and at their request we have no further comment at this time," said State Department spokesperson Esperanca Tilghman.

Shabazz was born in France in 1984. Never having met his father, he and his mother moved to the United States shortly after his birth. The pair reportedly relocated frequently; from France they went to Los Angeles and soon after moved across country to New York City and then later to Philadelphia.

In early childhood reports indicate that he showed a propensity for violent behavior and in third grade was reportedly hospitalized in a mental institution, suffering from delusions. He was released after a brief stay. As he got older, his behavior and mental state lead to what was arguably a tumultuous lifetime spent in and out of institutions, juvenile detention centers and prison.

While living with his mother in Minneapolis when he was 10, his mother was allegedly drawn into an assassination plot by an FBI informant, according to wikipedia. A year later, in 1995, she was charged with trying to hire an assassin to kill Louis Farrakhan. As part of a plea agreement, in lieu of a prison sentence she was mandated to undergo psychological counseling and substance abuse treatment for two years. Shabazz was sent to New York to live with his grandmother in the interim.

Reported to be unhappy with his new living conditions, two years later, at the age of 12, Shabazz set fire to his grandmother's house while she was in it, causing her to suffer severe burns that led to her death a few weeks later. Shabazz maintains that he set the fire so that he would be sent back to live with his mother.

At a court hearing to determine his punishment, psychiatrists described Shabazz as "psychotic" and "schizophrenic." He pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention center, which ended up stretching into a four-year stay.

A few years after his release, in 2002 Shabazz was arrested for stealing $100, pleaded guilty for attempted robbery and was sentenced to a 3-and-a-half year prison sentence. In 2006 Shabazz was arrested again for punching a hole through the front window of a Dunkin Donuts in Yonkers, NY. Most recently, in February 2013 Shabazz was reportedly taken into custody by the FBI during a trip to Iran, but his family claimed the media reports on his arrest were false and although he had indeed been arrested there was no connection to the FBI or Iran.

The Washington Post reports that Shabazz had since begun to try to turn his life around and had started writing a memoir. He dedicated most of his time traveling through the United States speaking out against youth violence. According to his Facebook page he had also enrolled in John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York

Shabazz is survived by his two daughters, his mother and his aunts.