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.
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.
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.”
The preliminary autopsy results are the
first time that some of the critical information resulting in Mr. Brown’s death
has been made public. Thousands of protesters demanding information and justice
for what was widely viewed as a reckless shooting took to the streets here in
rallies that ranged from peaceful to violent.
Mr. Brown died last week in a
confrontation with a police officer here in this suburb of St. Louis. The
police department has come under harsh criticism for refusing to clarify the
circumstances of the shooting and for responding to protests with
military-style operational gear.
“People have been asking: How many
times was he shot? This information could have been released on Day 1,” Dr.
Baden said in an interview after performing the autopsy. “They don’t do that,
even as feelings built up among the citizenry that there was a cover-up. We are
hoping to alleviate that.”
Dr. Baden said that while Mr. Brown was
shot at least six times, only three bullets were recovered from his body. But
he has not yet seen the X-rays showing where the bullets were found, which
would clarify the autopsy results. Nor has he had access to witness and police
statements.
Dr. Baden provided a diagram of the
entry wounds, and noted that the six shots produced numerous wounds. Some of
the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least
five different wounds.
“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.”
He stressed that his information does
not assign blame or justify the shooting.
“We
need more information; for example, the police should be examining the
automobile to see if there is gunshot residue in the police car,” he said.
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.
Prof. Shawn L. Parcells, a pathologist
assistant based in Kansas, assisted Dr. Baden.
“You do this for the families,” Mr.
Parcells said.
The two medical experts conducted the
four-hour examination Sunday at the Austin A. Layne Mortuary in St. Louis.
Benjamin L. Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Brown’s family who paid their travel
expenses, hired them.
“The sheer number of bullets and the
way they were scattered all over his body showed this police officer had a
brazen disregard for the very people he was supposed to protect in that
community,” Mr. Crump said. “We want to make sure people understand what this
case is about: This case is about a police officer executing a young unarmed
man in broad daylight.”
A spokesman for the Ferguson Police
Department, Tim Zoll, said the police had not seen a report of the autopsy and
therefore had no comment on it.
Dr. Baden said he consulted with the
St. Louis County medical examiner before conducting the autopsy.
One of the bullets shattered Mr.
Brown’s right eye, traveled through his face, exited his jaw and re-entered his
collarbone. The last two shots in the head would have stopped him in his tracks
and were likely the last fired.
Mr. Brown, he said, would not have
survived the shooting even if he had been taken to a hospital right away. The
autopsy indicated that he was otherwise healthy.
Dr. Baden said it was unusual for the
federal government to conduct a third autopsy, but dueling examinations often
occur when there is so much distrust of the authorities. The county of St.
Louis has conducted an autopsy, and the results have not yet been released.
He stressed that his examination was
not to determine whether the shooting was justified.
“In my capacity as the forensic
examiner for the New York State Police, I would say, ‘You’re not supposed to
shoot so many times,’ ” said Dr. Baden, who retired from the state police
in 2011. “Right now there is too little information to forensically reconstruct
the shooting.”
No matter what conclusions can be drawn
from Dr. Baden’s work, Mr. Brown’s death remains marked by shifting and
contradictory accounts more than a week after it occurred. The shooting is
under investigation by St. Louis County and by the F.B.I., working with the
Justice Department’s civil rights division and the office of Attorney General
Holder.
According to what has emerged so far, on Saturday,
Aug. 9, Mr. Brown, along with a companion, Dorian Johnson, was walking in the
middle of Canfield Drive, a fistful of cigarillos in Mr. Brown’s hand, police
say, which a videotape shows he stole from a liquor store on West Florissant
Ave.
At 12:01 p.m., they were stopped by Darren Wilson,
a police officer, who ordered them off the road and onto the sidewalk, Mr.
Johnson, who is 22, later said.
The police have said that what happened next was a
physical struggle between Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson that left the officer
with a swollen face. Mr. Johnson and others have said that it was a case of
racial profiling and police aggression from a white officer toward a black man.
Within minutes, Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, was dead of gunshot wounds.
The sequence of events provided by law enforcement
officials places Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson at Ferguson Market and Liquors, a
store several blocks away on West Florissant Ave., at about 11:50 a.m. After
leaving the store with the cigarillos, the two walked north on West Florissant,
a busy commercial thoroughfare, toward Canfield Drive, a clerk reported to the
police.
Mr. Brown was a big man at 6-foot-4 and 292 pounds,
though his family and friends described him as quiet and shy, a homebody who
lived with his grandmother.
It is about a 10-minute walk from Ferguson Market
to the spot where Officer Wilson, 28, with six years’ experience, approached
Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson.
The police tell of an officer who was enforcing the
minor violation of jaywalking, as Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson ignored the
sidewalk and strolled down the middle of the road instead.
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