Why am I not surprised that the results of a private autopsy on Michael Brown’s body fail to corroborate the stories of either the police or the eyewitnesses? According to forensic pathologist Dr. Michael M. Baden, none of the six shots that struck Mr. Brown entered from the rear, and there was no gunpowder on his body, indicating that none of the shots came at very close range. Dr. Baden didn’t have access to Mr. Brown’s clothes, however, so his results are inconclusive about whether a shot was fired while they struggled in the car window.
What his autopsy showed was that Mr. Brown was struck by six bullets, four of which hit Mr. Brown in his right arm, one of which hit him in his right eye and ricocheted into his collarbone, and the last of which struck the top of his skull causing a fatal injury. This is consistent with Mr. Brown bowing his head in submission or bowing his head to charge the officer. No help there.
What seems clear, however, is that he wasn’t struck in the back while he was running away, as multiple eyewitnesses declared. And there is nothing in the report to back up multiple accounts that a shot rang out while the officer was still in the car, which is something even the police have claimed.
So, unfortunately, the autopsy results add more confusion than clarity.
Seems consistent with eye witness testimony to me, at least one reading of it:
yeah, but she said that after she saw the autopsy report.
Correct, but it still fits together without much conflict.
Actually, it doesn’t fit together at all.
From what I’ve read, it’s possible that the officer fired while Brown was fleeing but that none of those shots actually struck him. Brown could have then turned around upon hearing the shots and raised his hands. A witness could have seen this and in the heat of the moment thought that Brown had been hit when he actually hadn’t.
We need to know how many bullets were left in Officer Wilson’s gun. Hopefully somebody knows that piece of information.
Yes especially if when Brown had his back turned he could hear/feel the bullets whistling past his body or head. He may well have suddenly flinched and even thought he’d been shot. And the sudden startle reaction occurring after the gun shots could lead a reasonable witness to think Brown had in fact been shot.
So I wouldn’t dismiss eyewitness testimony quite yet.
Explain. They saw him being fired at with his back turned, turns around and gets shot in the front. Seems consistent to me.
well, they clarified a bit in the press conference. They said one of the injuries could be consistent with a shot from behind. The article I was reacting to didn’t say that.
But, the curious things about the autopsy are:
The last part, which is the most important, is that he was clearly lit up by multiple shots that hit him in the front, fired at a distance.
So, as far the officer having a defense goes, he has to explain why he shot to kill when Brown was no longer a physical danger to him. He will argue that Brown was charging him. It’s his word against the the other eyewitnesses, because the autopsy alone can’t say.
Meanwhile, about 125 people protested in support of Officer Wilson. The crowd looked a lot like the Fox News demographic to me.
And these disturbers of the peace were policed by five bicycle cops.
Replace the St. Louis County Racist Militia with five bicycle cops and see if Ferguson quietens down.
The blatant racism is there for all to see that will.
Guess they got told to leave the white pointy hats back at the Klavern meeting hall.
It doesn’t matter. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming…
The media is succeeding in sweeping it under the carpet, and history will soon close over it despite Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s eloquent appeal for change.
Jay Nixon has ensured that this will not end well. The only question is how many more people will die as a result of his dithering, misguided, and racist leadership.
All we are seeing from American politicians are profiles in cowardice.
Jay Nixon has ordered no standing and no congregating on Florissant Road.
That’s effectively a no assembly and no protest order. It has very little to do with violence and looting. And Missouri effective slips into the ranks of one-party states.
This will not go well. There are too many people now angry and wanting their Constitutional rights. The teen and twenty-somethings will be out on the streets tonight and the authorities will attack the protesters and allow the vandals and looters to do their thing.
The conspicuous but not at all unexpected absence of libertarians and Tea Party folks from supporting the right of the protesters to protest is striking. “It’s the looting and vandlism”, they say. The very same folks who celebrate the looting of a merchant’s shipment of tea and the torturing (tar and feathers was a means of torture and death) of government officials.
So now let’s discuss whether Michael deserved to be shot, and whether the officer might have been justified in shooting him once and over and over and over and over and over again.
Shots to the inside of the hand/arm indicate Brown was, in fact, “Hands up. Don’t shoot” and that he was not charging the officer as some have claimed.
Sounds to me like the cop panicked and emptied his gun into Mr. Brown.
The top of the head? Sounds like he was shot while falling, although he could have been charging with his head down, but who would charge like that at a cop shooting at you?
While somewhat understandable, the bar for the “panicked cop defense” seems to me to be too low in this country. Police officers are supposed to be trained not to panic and act more restrained in dangerous situations than ordinary people would. It’s why the beating of Rodney King and killings of Oscar Grant and Amadou Diallo were so disturbing.
That wasn’t a defense. it was a condemnation. Cops aren’t supposed to panic, nor are soldiers. Since all are human, panic does occur, but it’s definitely not all right according to the job description.
Ha! Ha! The top of this page is displaying a Bruce Rauner ad. I hope you get as big a kick as I do from these RWNJ’s sending money to Boo to get OUR votes. ROTFLMAO
So Governor Nixon is sending Missouri’s best fighting force to Ferguson …
○ @billmon : The National Guard Does Ferguson
Given how badly cops messed up, part of me asks: can National Guard really do any worse?
And the other part of me answers: Fuck yes they can!
Re: MO National Guard, this isn’t very promising –>
“National Guard Confirms Identity of Alleged Neo-Nazi Soldier“
Must be universal to save “democracy” …
“communist”? The Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 yrs ago
I agree it was inconclusive about whether a shot was fired while they struggled in the car window but some reason is good to. I am sure there was a way to solve this.
best driving school nyc
The news from Ferguson s bad enough. Worse, here are first-person accounts from people of color who live in Ferguson, or nearby, describing the unofficial but enforced rules by which they must live to avoid confrontations with the police. Repression is an everyday condition of life. That makes me wonder how many similar towns there are, undiscovered because their police may never draw national attention.
Look at any suburban ring around a big city (on in the case of LA, older suburban areas within the city). Find a primarily minority area in which the majority of police and public officials are white. Find the suburban communities that when they were rural towns had the reputation of being “sundown towns”. Find the towns in which the political institutions have not caught up to a recent white flight.
And then look at small towns across America with the same filters.
There are oodles of towns and neighborhoods in the US like Ferguson.
Then look at the areas, like neighborhoods of Chicago, in which there are forced gentrification going on.
I dare say that in 1965 both Watts and Newark fit this filter of newly changed suburban communities that responded with police abuses.
And yes, excellent point about the constantly shifting rules of police engagement interfering in the daily lives for folks who are not protesting but trying to get to work, take kids to school, and live their lives.
Where is the police officers report? At the very least the police has known how many times Mike Brown was shot and they have the clothing of the decreased. So why don’t we have prelim results from county?
In a high profile case such as this one wouldn’t the prelim results be expedited?
Again, where is the police report
This question seems to me to be the elephant in the room. Has anyone in the media directly asked the police chief why this has not been released? This delay just fuels the fires of suspicion that there is a cover-up in the works.
Examined from another perspective, they add wonderful clarity.
When a devolved police system meets a devolved social system…the devolution of both being the result of a viciously self-profiting oligarchy…you have “American justice” at its most elementally flawed level. I have said here many times that in this system as it stands there is no way of finding out “the truth” about anything. From a parking lot fender bender right on up to who assassinated the JFK/MLK/RFK trinity, the truth has been supplanted by “truthiness.” On every levels, lying is now a kneejerk reaction. Individuals lie; organizations lie; the advertising-supported media are built from the ground up on the advertising lie; the government lies.
Here we have yet another picture of the real, contemporary American way. Oppressed workers…not necessarily racially oppressed ones, either…see the police and the system in general as the enemy. The functionaries of said system…from the presidency right on down to the beat cop…see the populace as the enemy. Laws are broken because people have no real respect for laws that are not enacted or enforced on their behalf and policemen…oppressed workers themselves, really, the house niggers of this system…quite rightly fear for their lives because they know damned well that what they are doing is hated by the people who are being oppressed. Violence ensues and lies from both sides quickly follow.
Bet on it.
Like dat.
Deal wid it.
How?
Stop electing bought-and-paid-for politicians.
“Oh…that’s impossible!!!” you say.
No, it isn’t.
Every journey begins with a first step.
Stop supporting them.
Stop voting for them.
Oppose them.
Publicly and often.
From The I Ching. (Emphases mine):
That’s what I am doing.
Y’oughta try it.
Why?
Because what you are doing is not working.
That’s why.
You…good, well-meaning Democrats…elected the Clintons. They obeyed their masters and sent American industry out of the country so that the .01% could get even richer..
You elected the Obamas. They pursued the same aims as their Bush/Clinton predecessors using different means.
And now you are about to elect the Clintons again.
And you wonder why I say “Wake the fuck up!!!” so often?
WTFU!!!
You been had.
Later…
AG
George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain would have done better?
Of course not. But, from the macro-long-term perspective, the “lesser evil” standard we use to choose elected officials may only be “slower evil.” And we seem not to be demanding “good” instead of “evil.” (Although I think many in this country did have hope that Obama would be the beginning of the tide change to good. It was, after all, his campaign theme. Won’t have any illusions like that in 2016 and a majority of Democrats appear to be just fine with that.)
Agree completely. Just refuting AG’s claim that we chose this. The choice was Hobson’s choice.
“You” was used as a plural pronoun. “You.” The so-called progressive left at which this site is aimed. “You” supported Clinton and even more strongly supported Obama. In a two-dimensional world there would only be two choices…support/vote for Republicrat Tweedledum or support/vote for Dempublican Tweedledee. Over the last fifty plus years he PermaGov has successfully squeezed media-tranced Americans into a world that is as similarly insane and two-dimensional as was the Wonderland of Lewis Carroll.
“Off with his head!!!” cried the (
Queen) errr, ahhhh…King.Bet on it.
The endgame of all of this bullshit?
Read on.
Sound familiar?
It does to me.
We are all now “under sentence of execution.” A cop can do it and get away with his skin just as can a preznit. “Guilt” and “innocence” are now reduced to media-manipulated brandings. It’s just a matter of scale. Power rules all. As above, so below. As in D.C, so in Ferguson. Bet on that as well.
Again…refer to the I Ching quote I posted.
“You”…those of us here who have supported in the past (and will continue to support in the present and near future) this ongoing lesser-of-two-evils scam…are living in a media-defined, two-dimensional world.
Break the fuck out!!!
Please.
Thank you and goodnight.
Later…
AG
Also too talk about bias…last week the prosecutor was reported to have said some rather inflammatory things about Nixon placing state police in charge and how it debased and insulted the police force. Now we find out the his father, a police officer, was shot and killed by a Black assailant.
This is the guy who will decide whether or not to prosecute Wilson?
And again we don’t have the police report or county prelim autopsy results.
Tell me that doesn’t have the markings of cover up scenarios
It’s been cover up from the moment the officer didn’t have to do a perp walk.
So that means he wasn’t fleeing when shot. As I understand that removes another justified reason to shoot.
I don’t see it this way at all. The police are justified in shooting him only if he was a threat to their safety. It’s almost impossible to argue that someone fleeing is a posing such a threat.
Thus, it’s hard to see “fleeing” as a justification to shoot.
As I understand it, in Missouri anyway, one is justified in using deadly force also to stop a fleeing “violent felon”. That’s why they tried the “strong arm robbery” (which IS a violent felony) B.S.
I’m with you, though. I always thought that the police were only justified in using deadly force if they or others were in “imminent danger”, i.e. they CAN fire at someone fleeing them with a hostage.
In MO I read that one legal justification for shooting by an officer is if a felon is fleeing. My comment is related to MO state law not moral/ethical standards.
So basically what AVitW said below.
Is this statutory law or case law?
If the latter, I’d be curious to know the facts of the cases in which it was OK to shoot a fleeing felon.
Me neither. Not because I know what actually happened. Nor because I assume any intent on the part of the witnesses to mislead or lie. But because I know eyewitness accounts suck. Human perception, cognition, and memory makes us ill equipped to accurately report events such as Michael Brown’s killing. And that’s for those that were in a position to observe the situation which all too often don’t exist. Not uncommon for people to report having seen something when they didn’t.
This is why it’s so very important for all of us to be cautious in evaluating events such as this one before forming conclusions as to what happened and who is culpable.
Was Officer Wilson examined for gunshot residue or wounds by a pathologist?
We don’t really know, and since Officer Wilson has fled, sorry, “relocated for his safety” we have to trust that the PD that allowed him to leave (they even provided the distraction for his flight, if I’m being cynical) did their due diligence.
And with this police force, how can any of us trust that they did?
BTW,
The State oF Missouri has decided that Darren Wilson will get off without even an investigation or administrative hearing. This time the prosecutor will see that the grand jury lets the ham sandwich walk.
The Missouri National Guard will suppress the community until it is silent. Theft and vandalism will continue likely at the background levels of a typical community.
The media will leave. And aside from specialist research about the Obama years, the whole incident will not make histories of the period, much less the textbooks.
And we await the next dead black young male and the next aggressive white cop and the next racist police department.
Because there is no will, even in the progressive community, to take the risks that will change it.
Lisa Bloom @LisaBloom
Follow
Remember officer must justify each bullet fired based on threat to this life or life of another. No free pass on shots at unarmed civilians.
10:55 AM – 18 Aug 2014
It’s been a month since the downing of MH17. No black box recordings. No Ukrainian civil or military radar. No US intel satellite photos. The Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior seized the recordings of the air traffic controllers immediately after the crash, and have not released them. No eyewitnesses to any contrail that would have been produced had a BUK-launched SAM been launched. But there were eyewitnesses to Ukrainian fighter jets near the airliner right before the plane went down, and Russia released its radar, showing those same SU-25s in the area.
Last week the Ukrainian army allegedly destroyed a column of Russian APCs. No pictures of the flaming wreckage. Over the weekend the Ukrainian army thrust deep into Lugansk and put the Ukrainian flag on the police station. However, no pictures of the valiant advance, suggesting that the photo of the flag-raising may have been when they did it early last spring. Today the rebels allegedly attacked their own relatives fleeing the Ukrainian shelling of Lugansk. No pictures.
Hiding information, or out and out lying, is not reserved to domestic murders.
Come on Bob — USians may be the least curious, truth-seeking people in the world except when the issue is about sex or money and preferably both. There’s also no constituency or group in the US that cares or is interested in the killing of 298 foreigners on foreign soil unless the dead can serve as justification for a war that we want to fight. No appetite for even a new Cold War much to the disappointment of the neo-cons like Nuland.