A private autopsy on the unarmed teen killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, showed he was shot at least six times and suffered two devastating wounds to the head, it was revealed Sunday.
The preliminary report on the autopsy, performed by former New York City Medical Examiner Michael Baden at the request of Michael Brown’s family, showed that the 18-year-old was struck four times in the right arm. A fifth bullet went into his right eye and the sixth pierced the top of his skull, which was the fatal wound, The New York Times reported.
Some of the bullets caused multiple wounds and were all fired from in front of the body — disproving claims of protesters that Brown was shot in the back while fleeing.
It was the most detailed autopsy information publicly released.
“This information could have been released on Day 1,” Baden told the Times. “They [didn’t] do that, even as feelings built up . . . that there was a cover-up. We are hoping to alleviate that.”
The private autopsy results came as US Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department has ordered its own autopsy.
The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s autopsy concluded that Brown died of gunshot wounds, but local authorities released no other details.
The private-autopsy report came as Ferguson police deployed tear gas Sunday to disperse protesters in advance of a second night of a curfew.
Most of the demonstrators ignored the curfew. There were no immediate reports of arrests.
The first night of the midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew saw seven arrests amid thick clouds of tear gas as police in riot gear used armored vehicles to chase off defiant protesters.
One man was shot and critically wounded in the melee, but not by police, insisted authorities, who pledged to investigate the shooting.
Meanwhile, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who ordered the curfew, said Sunday he wasn’t consulted by local cops before they showed video of Brown allegedly stealing a box of cigars and shoving a storekeeper, a move that further fanned the flames of civil unrest.
“When you release pictures and you clearly are attempting to besmirch a victim of a shooting, shot down in his own street . . . and at the same time you’re releasing information to try to make it, to tarnish him, then properly there was a lot of folks that were concerned about that,” Nixon told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
His concerns were echoed by the NAACP’s new president, Cornell William Brooks.
“I would liken it the Keystone Cops, but I don’t want to insult the Keystone Cops,” he told “Face the Nation.”
Additional reporting by Marisa Schultz