Autopsy confirms execution-style killing of Michael Brown

By a reporting team

19 August 2014

An independent autopsy of Michael Brown, performed Sunday, provides graphic evidence that the 18-year-old unarmed youth was shot execution-style by Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson.

The autopsy was conducted at a local funeral home by Dr. Michael Baden, the famed long-time medical examiner of New York City, now retired, with the assistance of forensic pathologist Shawn Parcells. Both experts volunteered their services and acted at the request of the victim’s family.

The two confirmed that Michael Brown had been shot at least six times, possibly more, with the first four bullets striking him in the right arm and shoulder, and the last two in the head. Only the final bullet, fired directly into the top of his head, was “not survivable,” Dr. Baden said.

Given that the victim was six feet five inches tall, he could only have been shot from that angle if he was bending over, practically in a kneeling position, strongly suggesting that after being struck by the initial rounds from Wilson’s gun, Brown was trying to indicate submission. The cop then delivered a coup de grace, execution-style.

The sheer number of shots undermines the claims of the Ferguson police, and Wilson’s defenders in the media, that the killing of Michael Brown was the outcome of a physical altercation initiated by Brown, in the course of which Brown tried to grab Wilson’s gun. There were no powder burns on Brown’s body, suggesting that all the shots, including the first one, were from some distance, not at close range.

Parcells gave special attention to the bullet that hit the front-facing portion of the victim’s right forearm, saying that the direction travelled by that bullet showed that Brown was either walking away from the police officer or had his hands raised in a “don’t shoot” position, as described by several eyewitnesses.

In subsequent television interviews, Parcells and Baden expressed surprise that the Ferguson police had not released preliminary autopsy results, including at least the number of bullets that struck Michael Brown. Baden said, “People have been asking: How many times was he shot? This information could have been released on Day 1.” The police withheld even the name of the shooter for nearly a week, and they continue to withhold all other details of the killing.

In a transparent effort to rebut the devastating evidence from the autopsy, the Ferguson police have tried to explain the trajectory of the final, lethal bullet, claiming that Brown had lowered his head and was charging Officer Wilson (with five bullet wounds in his body, including one to the head!) This story was fed to the media through an unidentified female “friend” of Wilson who called a radio station, after which it was trumpeted as an eyewitness account by CNN and other television networks.

This bogus account is absurd on its face: no 18-year-old African-American man, unarmed, would charge at a policeman pointing a loaded semi-automatic at him, especially one who had already fired a volley of shots. Moreover, the first shot to the head, even though not instantly fatal, would have brought Michael Brown down and made any such “charge” impossible. The second shot to the head, therefore, was delivered by the cop to an incapacitated victim.

In an effort to contain the damage from the exposure of police lies by the independent autopsy, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would arrange for a separate federal autopsy of Michael Brown, “due to the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family.”

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