Slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown was shot in the hand at close range, an official county autopsy report obtained by the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows, bolstering police officer Darren Wilson's claims that the 18-year-old had attacked him.
The Washington Post also reported early Tuesday that at least six African-American witnesses back Wilson's account of the shooting -- that he was attacked by Brown. This challenges earlier accounts that suggested that most black witnesses to the shooting said that Brown was shot for seemingly no reason at all while he had his hands raised.
Wilson’s account is also now backed by the physical evidence that leaked from the grand jury last week. That includes blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests. Taken as a whole this casts Brown as the aggressor who threatened the officer’s life, the Post reports.
The examinations were conducted by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office, and contradict a private autopsy conducted for Brown's family. That autopsy showed there were no signs of a struggle between the teen and Wilson, who killed Brown on Aug. 9, sparking weeks of often violent protests in Ferguson, a predominantly black suburb of St. Louis, reports
NBC News.
Meanwhile, the official autopsy backs up
Wilson's statements that Brown had struggled for his weapon while inside a police department car and that the officer had shot twice, hitting Brown in the hand. Soon after, Wilson fired the shots that killed Brown.
St. Louis Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Graham, who is not part of the official investigation, reviewed the autopsy report and told the Post-Dispatch that "it does support that there was a significant altercation at the car."
The autopsy showed a shot went from the tip of Brown's thumb to his wrist, and while there were no powder burns that would indicate the shot was fired at short range, "sometimes when it's really close such as within an inch or so, there is no stipple, just smoke."
Further, the report showed that there was foreign matter in the thumb tissue "consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm," and Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, who also examined the autopsy for the newspaper, who said the autopsy "supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound."
And, she said, "if he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun."
Brown's blood was also found on Wilson's gun itself, sources told the Post-Dispatch, and Brown's tissue was found on the outside of the driver's side of Wilson's police vehicle.
"Someone got an injury that tore off skin and left it on the car," Graham told the Post-Dispatch. "That fits with everything else that came out. There’s blood in the car, now skin on the car; that shows something happened right there."
Melinek also said the autopsy did not support witnesses' claims that Brown was shot with his hands up or while running from Wilson.
Instead, she said, Brown was facing Wilson and was shot once each in the forehead and upper right arm, and twice in the chest.
Brown was also in the head in a position that meant he was falling forward or lunging toward the shooter, said Melinek, and the shot was instantly fatal.
Melinek said a sixth shot hit Brown's forearm and traveled from the back of the arm to the inner arm, meaning Brown's palms were not facing Wilson and that the 18-year-old was likely not taking "standard surrender position."
A toxicology report taken during the autopsy showed that Brown's body tested positive for marijuana, the Post-Dispatch reports.
St. Louis County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Case could not be reached for comment and her assistant, Dr. Gershom Norfleet, who performed the autopsy, would not comment.
A third autopsy has been ordered by federal officials, and those results have not been released. Meanwhile, the official and private autopsies agree on the number and locations of Brown's wounds.