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The government autopsy of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old whose death led to nights of unrest earlier this year in Ferguson, Missouri, discovered a gunshot wound that appears to support accounts of a struggle with the police officer who shot him dead.
An accompanying toxicology report also stated that Brown had marijuana in his body when he was killed.
The report of the post-mortem by the St Louis County medical examiner said that the largest gunshot wound found on Brown’s body was on his right hand, and that tissue from the wound appeared to contain gunpowder particles.
According to the autopsy report, Brown’s hand wound also showed no signs of stippling, a pattern of dots around the entry. Stippling tends to occur when someone is shot from relatively close range rather than in more immediate contact with a weapon.
Dr Michael Graham, the St Louis medical examiner, told the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, which obtained Brown’s autopsy report, that it “does support that there was a significant altercation at the car”.
Dr Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, told the newspaper that the autopsy “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound”.
Police have said that officer Darren Wilson shot Brown on 9 August following a struggle over Wilson’s handgun at his car after Wilson stopped him and a friend for jaywalking. They have alleged that Brown assaulted the officer and left him with injuries to his face.
Several witnesses have stated publicly that Brown was shot fatally while fleeing Wilson and even while his hands were raised in an apparent gesture of surrender. Dr Michael Baden, who carried out a private autopsy for Brown’s family, said in August that “there weren’t signs of a struggle” on Brown’s body.
However, tissue from Brown’s body was also discovered on the outside of the driver’s side of Wilson’s police car, according to the county autopsy report. Federal investigators were previously reported to have told the New York Times that Brown’s blood was found inside the vehicle.
The official autopsy appeared to match the family’s private autopsy’s findings on where Brown was struck, and that the fatal shot entered the top of his head. Brown’s family’s lawyers have said this indicated that Brown was bowing down while surrendering; sources close to Wilson have said that the officer’s account is that Brown charged at him with his head bowed.
Baden, a former chief medical examiner for New York City, said when unveiling the private autopsy’s findings in August that his conclusions “could be consistent” with suggestions that Brown had been shot while charging at Wilson. “It’s possible,” he said.
The toxicology report, produced by the St Louis University toxicology laboratory, found that Brown’s blood contained 12 nanograms of THC, the active chemical in marijuana, per millilitre. Under recent changes to the law in Colorado, where marijuana can be used legally, drivers are presumed to be under the influence of the drug if their blood contains more than five nanograms per mililitre.
