Autopsy Results

BREAKING: Michael Brown Official
Autopsy Results are In; Will this Finally
Stop the Protests?

October 22, 2014 By Jennifer Burke

The results of Michael Brown’s autopsy are in and, given the series of events in the St. Louis area by Brown supporters and threats they have vowed to act on if Officer Darren Wilson isn’t indicted for his murder, the St. Louis and Ferguson area should perhaps brace itself for more violence from the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” Michael Brown devotees.


After the shooting, Officer Darren Wilson said that Brown reached for his gun and fought him for control of it. Wilson suffered major damage to his face during this altercation and fight for the gun. Fearing for his life, Wilson said he shot at Brown. Recent eyewitness testimony to the grand jury corroborated Wilson’s claims. Now, the official autopsy report appears to do the same.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports on the autopsy which concluded that Michael Brown was shot in the hand at close range, which supports Wilson’s story that Brown was fighting him for control of the gun. Dr. Michael Graham, St. Louis medical examiner, said that the autopsy does support that ‘there was a significant altercation at the car.”

Foreign matter on a thumb wound, according to San Francisco forensic pathologist, Dr. Judy Melinek, “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound. If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

A recent New York Times article that disclosed that Brown’s blood was found on Officer Wilson’s gun ignited further unrest in Ferguson with Brown supporters unhappy with the evidence. The additional evidence from the autopsy report will likely not sit well with them either. It shows that the fatal shot to Michael Brown was not from a distance in the back of the head as Ferguson protesters have claimed.

Melinek also said the autopsy did not support witnesses who have claimed Brown was shot while running away from Wilson, or with his hands up.
She said Brown was facing Wilson when Brown took a shot to the forehead, two shots to the chest and a shot to the upper right arm. The wound to the top of Brown’s head would indicate he was falling forward or in a lunging position toward the shooter; the shot was instantly fatal.
A sixth shot that hit the forearm traveled from the back of the arm to the inner arm, which means Brown’s palms could not have been facing Wilson, as some witnesses have said, Melinek said. That trajectory shows Brown probably was not taking a standard surrender position with arms above the shoulders and palms out when he was hit, she said.

Ever since the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by Police Officer Darren Wilson, there has been the accusation that Wilson shot Brown in the back in cold blood after Brown put his hands up. Riots ensued with major damage done to private property. In two months, spurred on by Activist Attorney General Eric Holder saying he stood with the protesters in Ferguson, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton repeating the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ meme while accusing police of widespread brutality and convicting Wilson as guilty, the protests have not stopped.

Barack Obama even spoke about the Michael Brown shooting in a speech before the United Nations saying that it is evidence that the United States has ‘our own racial and ethnic tensions’ that compare to the sectarian genocide and ethnic cleansing plaguing the Middle East.’

Violence has continued with protesters interrupting the daily life of people unconnected to the shooting. They have chanted for the killing of Darren Wilson and threatened that there would be more violence if he is not indicted. Even the Democrat governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, called for the vigorous prosecution of Officer Wilson before an investigation had even begun.

With the official autopsy report not supporting the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” narrative that has been claimed by Brown supporters, how will the Ferguson community, and those outside agitators who have remained in the area to fuel the unrest, respond?