After the forensic pathologist that Michael Brown’s family hired to do a second autopsy said all of the bullets entered Brown from the front and there was insufficient evidence to reconstruct the shooting at this time, Brown family attorneys on Monday claimed he was “executed” via bullets that entered him from behind.
The Monday press conference created more questions than answers about what occurred because the medical examiners did not interrupt Brown’s attorneys to say that their words were not consistent with the results of the autopsy.
On Sunday evening, the New York Times obtained the results from the autopsy that the Brown family commissioned, which determined “that all the bullets were fired into his front.”
According to the Times, “Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York… flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy.”
The medical examiners said that Brown was shot six times and could have survived the first five shots. Baden said, “in my capacity as the forensic examiner for the New York State Police, I would say, ‘You’re not supposed to shoot so many times,'” but added that there is “too little information to forensically reconstruct the shooting.”
At a Monday press conference, Benjamin Crump, the Brown family attorney who also represented Trayvon Martin’s family, said the Brown family wanted answers for the “tragic execution of their child.”
Brown family attorney Daryl Parks then claimed the the autopsy showed that it was “clear” that “the direction was the bullet was in a back-to-front direction,” though there was apparently nothing in the report to justify that claim. He said Wilson “should have been arrested,” and it made “no sense” why Brown was shot “in the top of the head.”
Parks also said the autopsy results verified “eyewitness accounts, which is so very important in bringing the story together.” He said the results “verify” that the “witness accounts were true.” He said they needed to “get all the witness statements out” in order to “to put this picture together.”
Yet the preliminary autopsy results seem to contradict Dorian Johnson’s initial testimony that the officer shot Brown in the back.
Another Brown family attorney urged media members to “remain balanced” in their reporting, and the medical examiners reiterated that there is not enough evidence to reconstruct the shooting.