Michael Brown, the unarmed black Missouri teen who was murdered by a police officer, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.
The NY Times reports that one of the bullets entered the top of Michael’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury. The autopsy was performed by 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.
Michael, only 18, was also shot four times in the right arm.
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.”
(Three autopsies… SMH. They’re just dissecting this poor boy’s body.)
The preliminary autopsy results are the first time that some of the critical information resulting in Michael’s death has been made public.
“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.”
So far, while Michael was shot at least six times, only three bullets were recovered from his body.
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.
Dr. Baden, 80, is a well-known New York-based medical examiner. He is best known for having hosted the HBO show “Autopsy.” 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.
Dr. Baden said that because of the tremendous attention to the case, he waived his $10,000 fee.
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