Expert: Autopsy doesn’t show if Brown went for gun


Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

Michael Brown’s official autopsy indicates he was shot in the hand at close range during a struggle, but a medical examiner not involved in the investigation says there’s no way to conclude whether the injury meant the unarmed 18-year-old was trying to grab the gun of the officer who killed him.

The St. Louis County medical examiner’s autopsy report, obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, doesn’t explain why Brown was killed after the apparent scuffle at Officer Darren Wilson’s police vehicle spilled onto a Ferguson street or confirm whether he was confronting Wilson or trying to surrender when he was fatally shot — both scenarios offered by various witnesses to the Aug. 9 shooting.

The shooting of Brown, who was black, by Wilson, who is white, spurred unrest and weeks of protests in Ferguson, some of which turned violent. A grand jury is expected to decide by mid-November whether Wilson will face criminal charges, and the Justice Department is investigating for possible civil-rights violations.

The autopsy showed Brown suffered six bullet-entrance wounds and listed “gunshot wounds to the head and chest” as the cause of death. A toxicology report with the autopsy also showed Brown had marijuana in his system.

Dwain Fuller, a Dallas-area forensic toxicologist, told The Associated Press the report indicated “recent use” that likely meant Brown still was feeling the effects of the drug, but “as far as that making him violent, one can’t really say.”

Both the Post-Dispatch, which published a story Wednesday on the county autopsy report, and The New York Times, which ran a story last week about the officer’s account of the shooting, cited unnamed sources saying Wilson told investigators he and Brown struggled over the officer’s gun.

The autopsy said a microscopic exam showed that foreign matter found on tissue from Brown’s injured thumb was “consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm.”

St. Louis city medical examiner Michael Graham, who was not involved in the autopsy, said that and other evidence indicates the shot to the hand probably occurred inside Wilson’s SUV. Graham, in an interview with the AP, said it’s impossible to conclude whether the close-range injury meant Brown was trying to grab the officer’s gun, as Wilson has alleged.

Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist from San Francisco, said combined with other evidence, the autopsy indicates there was a struggle for Wilson’s gun inside the officer’s SUV.

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