Brown family releases preliminary autopsy findings

By Sandra Jordan Of The St. Louis American

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Initial findings of a second autopsy performed on unarmed teenager Michael Brown confirm there were six shots fired, including two to his head, a chest wound and shots to his right arm and hand. The family commissioned the independent autopsy.

Attorneys for Brown’s family, along with a famed medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden and forensics pathologist Shawn Parcells provided details this morning during a press conference at Greater St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson.

New information they released today sheds more light on the direction two of two of those bullets.

“It shows a back-to-front for both of those, and it supports what the witnesses said about him trying to surrender to the officer,” Attorney Daryl Parks said. “And his head was in a downward position – it had to be, for what had happened.

“Those type of facts are clear and we believe that given those type of facts that this officer, officer should have been arrested.”

Parcells described the shots.

“We’ve got one to the top of the head, the apex … one that entered just above the right eyebrow … one that entered the top part of the right arm … a superficial graze wound to the middle part of the right arm … a wound that entered the medial aspect of the right arm and we’ve got a deep graze wound that produced a laceration to the palm of the right hand,” Parcells said. Additional wounds are possible bullet re-entry and exit wounds, he added, and he said their findings have to be conferred with the first autopsy.

Parcells made another critical point that he wanted everyone to be clear on about the wound to the medial aspect of the right arm.

“The question asked to us was, could that wound occur from him walking away, and then he turned around. It is consistent with that,” Parcells said. “However, understand too that while the shot could have come from the back…the arm is a very mobile part of your body, so it also could have occurred when he was putting his hands up… it could have happened if he put his arms across in a defensive manner. We don’t know.”

Dr. Baden stressed the results were preliminary, and he needed to review x-rays taken before the first autopsy as well as the victim’s clothing.

This second autopsy confirmed that Brown was shot from a distance since there was no gunpowder residue present on the body. Additionally, Brown’s body showed no signs of a struggle, Baden said, other than facial abrasions when he fell forward onto the street.

He added that the third autopsy, this one by federal authorities, is expected in the next day or two.

“It verifies witness accounts were true,” said Benjamin L. Crump, attorney for the family.

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