Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times (with autopsy graphic)

[Purveyor]

Source: New York Times



FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.
Continue reading the main story

The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Mr. Brown’s clothing, to which Dr. Baden did not have access.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. So much for the disinformation artist spreading disinformation around here

you've been schooled

[Logical]

4. Why be arrogant about this? nt

[JI7]

7. it's not arrogant to call out liars

[Live and Learn]

12. Exactly who lied?

I see little proof of anything here except that he was shot multiple times for no good reason.

[Lex]

2. Fired into the front of his hands and arms. So hands up

or hands forward when shots fired.

[MohRokTah]

32. Hands up makes the most sense

Move the hand up in the autopsy chart and you get a tight pattern of shots.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Wow! Big news! Thanks for posting this...

[cleduc]

5. Still inconclusive

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?_r=0
For example:

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”
...
“Right now there is too little information to forensically reconstruct the shooting.”

[Beaverhausen]

8. An unarmed man charging an officer shooting at him?

Really?

[uponit7771]

9. +1, and from 35 feet away..

[JimDandy]

10. Exactly. That's why we have the two words

'possible' and 'probable' and also: 'not fucking believable'. It's late-that's my excuse.

[cleduc]

14. The crime scene distance was 35 feet

roughly from the cruiser to where he lay - something like that according to what I recall from a press conference

That doesn't mean the shots were from 35 feet

Some reports I heard or read said the officer was out of his cruiser in pursuit. Therefore, there's a good chance the shots were less than 35 feet (if those accounts are accurate on that point)

No gun shot residue found on his head and his cap found several feet away suggests the fatal head shots probably came from more than 3-5 feet away

[Solomon]

13. you left out this most important fact: a BLACK unarmed man.

They believe anything if a black man is involved no matter how ridiculous.

[cleduc]

15. There are a couple of accounts making that claim

How reliable they are, I'm not sure. Both appear to have been published by right wingers and therefore, my suspicion radar is beeping rather loudly.

BUT, this has to be about beyond reasonable doubt. Because those accounts haven't been discounted beyond reasonable doubt, I cannot dismiss them entirely yet.

[Beaverhausen]

20. No eyewitness accounts saying he charged

All eyewitnesses say he raised his hands.

But you go on believing what you want to believe.

[cleduc]

22. I'm not so sure about that:

[Beaverhausen]

24. The cop kept coming towards Brown

Please try to keep up

[cleduc]

27. Quotes from that video

0:26 "The next thing I know he coming back towards the police"
0:53 "Dude started running ... coming toward the police"

IF that audio is legit, that's a problem in terms of conflicting eyewitness testimony.

[merrily]

28. Head forward could also be because he was doubled over.

[cleduc]

30. For sure.

He could have been coming at the officer
Or going down on his knees to surrender as some have suggested.
Or starting to falter due to loss of blood.
Or it could be he was on his way down after the first crippling head shot and the officer fired again.

There might be other alternatives to that too.

The guy who did the autopsy couldn't conclude everything and I haven't been able to either.

[jillan]

6. He was shot in the palm of his hand. There is no way to spin that. His hands were UP.

[cleduc]

16. Maybe you and I are looking after different pictures

In the one above, the wound on his hand shows a wound on the bone leading to his thumb - which is not precisely the palm of his hand. It does appear to be on the inner/palm side of the hand.

It's not a round entrance wound - it's a line along much of the bone below the thumb - which opens it to the possibility that the angle of the bone when it was struck by the bullet was roughly pointing towards the gun - not in a "classic" hands up position.

It also could be that the bone shattered in a hands up position when struck and did that damage - though if I had to guess, that seems less likely but it's pretty tough to be absolutely sure one way or the other from that diagram. I certainly wouldn't want to try to convict anyone solely on the basis of that diagram.

[avebury]

18. Looking at the diagram for the rest of the

shots in his arm to me would indicate that his hands were up as in surrender.

[cleduc]

19. Where I'm having a problem with that is the diagram.

It shows his arms at his side and you can see all the entrance wounds with his arms in that position. That suggests to me that his arms did not HAVE to be in the hands up position for those wounds to occur.

Sorry to be a pain in the butt here. If the officer murdered Mike Brown, I'd like him to receive the maximum sentence for the injustice. But I have to be absolutely sure before I'll howl for that.

[avebury]

23. It shows the arms at the side because

the victim was lying down for the autopsy (like you would be on your bed sleeping flat on your back). I do not believe that alter the form to depict how a person was standing, sitting, laying down, whatever when they die. The layout of the form is probably what the pathologist is looking at with the victim on the table.

[cleduc]

29. Yep, I'm sure that's why the blank diagram is the way it is.

1. Note the wounds when the victim is lying on their back and
2. Note the wounds when the victim is lying on their belly

And they'd make sure they rotate the hands when the body gets flipped for the second view.

I'm open to arguments or suggestions where I may be missing something. But in trying to be objective, I simply cannot definitely conclude from those diagrams if his hands were up or not. If someone can fill me in on what I'm not seeing, please do.

[Ms. Toad]

40. It is not possible to tell.

The hand and forearm could also be (based on how some people hold their hands when they move) from behind. A fair number of people at least walk with their palm and forearm facing back.

[cleduc]

42. That's a good point. Made me think of something.

I just rotated my hands at my desk. I'd guess I can rotate my palms more than 270 degrees. My forearm also significantly rotates - obviously not as much.

In light of that, I'd like to present something that may make Dorian Johnson's "shot in the back" more plausible (that I maybe wrongly criticized above). Although Mike wasn't shot in the back, he could have been running with his back to the cop when his forearm took a bullet and that wound was what caused him to stop running. Because the wound as documented in that forearm could occur in that place when one has their back to a shooter. And I think that would be a more natural orientation of the forearm if one were running.

So maybe all Johnson got wrong with the "shot in the back" term was more accurately, Mike was "shot in the forearm" while running away with his back to the cop.

The thumb wound is arguably possible to have occurred that way as well but it seems more like a longer graze.

From that, the other point I thought of is Mike was allegedly first wounded while at the window of the cruiser. The head shots were catastrophic so it's unlikely to be them. The hand wound had no GSR so it's unlikely to be that. The forearm as per the above is most likely to be the wound that stopped him from running away. Johnson said Mike was wounded on the right side when he was by the car. The two wounds in his right chest are secondary. That leaves one of the two entrance wounds in his upper right arm as the one inflicted while he was at the cruiser and maybe a secondary wound to his chest there. Just an fyi while we try to figure this autopsy out.

[avebury]

41. Generally, if you are standing up and your hands are

at your side, the topside of your arms is what faces the front, not the underside. Now, if you raise your arms, then the underside of yours will become visible and that is where it appears that his arm was shot.

[Cha]

11. That was a Good article in the NYT.. snip from your link..

"Dr. Baden, 80, is a well-known New York-based medical examiner, who is one of only about 400 board-certified forensic pathologists in the nation. He reviewed the autopsies of both President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies himself.

He is best known for having hosted the HBO show “Autopsy,” but he rankles when he is called a “celebrity medical examiner,” saying that the vast majority of what he does has nothing to do with celebrities.

Dr. Baden said that because of the tremendous attention to the case, he waived his $10,000 fee."

snip//

"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday that the Justice Department would conduct its own autopsy, in addition to the one performed by local officials and this private one because, a department spokesman said, of “the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family.”

Mahalo Purveyor

[OneGrassRoot]

17. Cyril Wecht on CNN right now: Not all individual bullet wounds

I didn't hear the first part, so I don't know if he said this definitively or speculatively, but he said that the shot to the eye went through his jaw area and then shoulder, which means Michael was on the ground, or at a lower height than the shooter, and the shooter was shooting with a downward trajectory.

Edit to add: He also added that he feels it is highly unlikely that, given Michael's size, that the head shots occurred as Michael was "charging." He doesn't feel any "charging" was possible given what he has seen.

[Calista241]

21. I think there is a reason the state hasn't released

The police report or their own autopsy report. It's likely they believe it will enflame tensions even more, and they're waiting for the anger to subside.

It's either going to be exactly what we all think it is, followed by an indictment. Or it's going to totally exonerate the cop.

Given my cynicism, I suspect it's choice #2.

[cleduc]

25. Found the interview where Dorian Johnson incorrectly states Brown was

shot in the back:

at the 9 minute mark

So the autopsy refutes that specific allegation (not necessarily his whole account).

Also notable from that interview is:
2:40 "Mike's hands were filled with cigarillos. His hands were not free. His hands were filled"
Later on in the interview, at 5:11, during the altercation at the cruiser, Dorian says Mike passed the cigarillos ("hold these&quot he had to Dorian to free Mike's hands.

That's important because some accounts suggest the officer stopped originally because of the jaywalking but the officer figured out not long afterwards that these two may have been involved with the recent robbery of cigars. From Dorian's account, it's not unreasonable to accept the notion that the cigarillos were plainly visible.

at 7:11 (after the shot was fired) "The officer let go. And that's how we were both able to run at the same time. It was almost like the officer didn't mean to shoot him ..."

at 8:10 "I could tell the officer was in shock because it took him at least 2 or 3 minutes to get out of the car. It was almost like he had to make a judgement call about what he'd just done" (maybe the officer was making a radio call... I'm not sure and 2-3 minutes seems to be over estimated)

[bravenak]

26. So what?

Dorian was running and hiding. He did not examine the body to see if the shots actually hit, or if Mike jerked because the gunshot noise scared him. An unreliable witness does not exonerate the shooter, especially since h chased the boy down.

Please try to keep up. We went through this yesterday.

[cleduc]

31. As I said above

"So the autopsy refutes that specific allegation (not necessarily his whole account)."

I haven't concluded one way or the other whether the officer murdered Brown or acted in self defense.

[bravenak]

33. Seems like you have.....

[cleduc]

34. I remain suspicious of the officer using excessive force

An unarmed man has been shot dead. That continues to smell bad to me.

But I'd like proof beyond reasonable doubt one way or the other. That's justice and what this situation deserves. Whether we get it, remains to be seen. It's not always easy to get - it sometimes has to be worked for.

Sometimes, there are cases where we simply can't figure it out to that degree of certainty. Sometimes, there are cases where we think we've got it figured out and later, it turns out we were wrong. Hopefully, that doesn't happen here.

In the interim, playing devil's advocate to scrutinize both sides of the evidence isn't a bad exercise because I think it moves us closer to the indisputable truth of what really happened.

I'm not out to merely or blindly defend the officer. Truly, I'm not. If he's guilty, I hope they hammer him.

[bravenak]

35. I always feel suspicious of police since I have been profiled.

They always get the benefit of doubt that they are never willing to give us. The man is a murderer.

[cleduc]

38. Some years ago, a cop pulled me over.

They accused me of:
1. Speeding 75mph on a 60mph highway
2. Being impaired
3. There was a warrant out for my arrest

Here's the problem they had with that:
1. My car transmission had partially failed the day before. The car was physically incapable of exceeding 50mph because it couldn't get past 2nd gear
2. I hadn't had anything to drink in a month. I later blew 0.000000000 on their super duper breathalyzer at the station
3. There's never been a warrant nor have I ever been legitimately suspected by the police of any crime in my lifetime.

I started out polite and compliant with the officer though I denied their allegations.

Since I was being arrested, I turned to my friend to hand him my bank card and give him the phone number of my lawyer so I could get bailed out.

The officer reached in the open window of my car and tried to physically drag me out through the window. Big mistake for that cop. But only to point out that I can relate to Mike grappling with a cop through the window of a car. I've had a few flashbacks. I subdued the cop by twisting their arm, rolled up the window on their arm and started my engine. I told that cop we were going to a police station and now he had a choice which way they were going to arrive at that station: in a civil manner or wiped off on a telephone post. They chose to go to the police station in a civilized manner.

At the police station, when I went to charge them for assault, they broke down into tears and confessed that my bogus speeding ticket was just them trying to meet a "quota" that had been assigned to them.

I had another run in with six of them doing a Rodney King to a guy and I shut that down by telling them my friend was filming them from down the street (which was BS as I hadn't connected with my friend yet).

So I can't blindly give an officer the benefit of the doubt. Most of the police around me are excellent, good people. I always start out with them nicely and respectfully, etc. And I'd help any cop in a pickle in a second and I have before. But rest assured that I'm not oblivious to the notion that there are a few bad cops out there. And Darren Wilson just might be one of those bad cops.

[bravenak]

39. That is one scary tale!

I think Darren Wilson is one of those cops too. The fatal shot was the one to the top of his head. He didn't have to fire that shot. The boy was already shot in the face, and apparently it was survivable. He did a coup de grace.

[JTFrog]

37. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[cleduc]

43. Dr Baden Press Conference on the autopsy

cuts off at end .. sorry only long video I've seen on this so far

Here's a second part that I couldn't find the first part of

A third one
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/18/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews