Discussion: Michael Brown Autopsy Leaks: Wounds To Hands, Head And Chest

Discussion for article #229152

Still. It takes 9 bullets to bring down a teenager hopped up on marijuana?

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The fact that Brown attempted to get the officer’s gun might justify shots fired in the car. But how does that justify the fatal shots fired after he left the car without the gun?

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I can’t imagine how any autopsy could possibly tell us if the young man had his hands in the air or not or was moving away or forward when he was shot in the head. OTOH the video of the workers’ reaction to the police shooting looked rather convincing to me.

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How does an autopsy prove that an altercation took into a car??? Also, the fact that the hand was shot at close range does not prove that Brown was reaching for the gun.

People need to learn what an autopsy report can and cannot tell you. It can only tell you whether a story is consistent with the findings, it cannot tell you exactly what happened.

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That’s my question too. I have no issue with Wilson defending himself in a life and death struggle over a gun with a large man. But once Wilson had the gun and Brown was allegedly backing away, is it still necessary/justified to unload the clip on him?

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“The official report” conducted by the St. Louis ME.

Hmm. No chance of bias there.

Cameras on cops at all times. Only way to curb something like this.

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The finding “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound," Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said. "If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

Sure it does, Judy. It also supports the fact that this guy was struggling to get away from the officer, who was trying to pull him into the car as eyewitnesses have stated, when the officer reached for his gun and began firing at close range. Or, that the officer pulled his weapon on Brown during the struggle and the weapon was accidentally or purposefully discharged by the officer during the struggle. Regardless, when Brown backed away from the vehicle and was no longer a scary black guy being scary, the officer had no reason to continue shooting as he was attempting to flee or surrender.

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  1. Consider the impartiality (?) of the issuers of this autopsy report 2. MB was not killed at the car but on the street. 3. A scuffle at the car doesn’t automatically verify that MB was reaching for the gun (Some witnesses have claimed that the officer was pulling MB into the car, etc)
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Sorry, we must have been typing at the same time. You said it better than I did.

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They’ve had months to make sure it does. Of course, nobody has had an official police account of the shooting, so maybe they’re still making sure it matches the autopsy.

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You beat me to it. How does Brown being shot in the hand prove that Brown was reaching for the officer’s gun? This is some real CSI: Miami style conclusion jumping.

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Dumb-fuk authoritarians have already swallowed this whole. It’s too late. Wilson is going to walk. Where he can walk to I don’t know. I doubt he will ever be able to show his face in public again.

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Not that I didn’t before, but I completely understand why Michael Brown’s family wanted their own pathologist. I don’t have the greatest feeling about this. It seems like they’re trying to get all their ducks in a row.

It seems to me that the media is selling this in a way that also supports (albeit falsely) Wilson’s account. All this autopsy confirms is that there was a struggle inside the car. It does not exclude the possibility (and eyewitness accounts) of the officer pulling Mr. Brown into the car, or Mr. Brown struggling to keep Wilson from taking out his gun to shoot Mr. Brown. The media is doing precisely what the so-called “leaked” autopsy was supposed to do and that is get the public to think that Wilson was justified. Notice that the report also mentions that Mr. Brown had marijuana in his system - again trying to make it look like it was Mr. Brown’s fault for getting shot multiple times. Why is no one citing the fact that if the officer was so afraid, why didn’t he just accelerate his car - isn’t that the most reflexive thing to do? I don’t think a lot of people are going to swallow this blatant attempt to blame the victim this time. No explanation has been given as to why Wilson had to shoot inside the car, then stop the car and get out and shoot several times more.

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"If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

Yeah. Or those powder burns were residue from a defensive first wound as he was walked backward into the street via gunfire.

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My biggest issue is why the authorities have refused to release any account for weeks on end. What is their justification for lack of transparency?

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IANAL, but let’s be clear – the official autopsy report doesn’t contradict the police version of events. That’s not exactly the same thing as supporting the police version of events.

A contemporaneous incident report would have locked the police into a narrative. Without that, they were always free to create a story that doesn’t contradict the physical evidence. I’m not a conspiracy nut, but I’m feeling a bit nutty about this case.

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That’s such an adorable question.

The answer is that it takes as many rounds fired into an attacker as it takes to stop them from being an attacker. End of story.

If it’s one, then it’s one. If it’s nine, then it’s nine.

Perhaps they are following DOJ/0bama administration’s lead?

Holder went there and tried to put his stamp on the events as they unfolded after the incident.