Per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The official autopsy on Michael Brown shows that he was shot in the hand at close range, according to an analysis of the findings by two experts not involved directly in the case.
The accompanying toxicology report shows he had been using marijuana.
Those documents, prepared by the St. Louis County medical examiner and obtained by the Post-Dispatch, provide the most detailed description to date of the wounds Brown sustained in a confrontation Aug. 9 with Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson.
A source with knowledge of Wilson’s statements said the officer had told investigators that Brown had struggled for Wilson’s pistol inside a police SUV and that Wilson had fired the gun twice, hitting Brown once in the hand. Later, Wilson fired additional shots that killed Brown and ignited a national controversy.
The St. Louis medical examiner, Dr. Michael Graham, who is not part of the official investigation, reviewed the autopsy report for the newspaper. He said Tuesday that it “does support that there was a significant altercation at the car.”
First things first: The fact that Brown had been using marijuana tells us precisely nothing about what happened that day. It is just as possible for a man to be unjustifiably killed while he is high as it is for a man to be unjustifiably killed while he is sober. To take his inebriation as evidence either way is a mistake.
That Brown was shot in the hand at close range, however, is instructive. Why? Well, because if, as Dr. Graham suggests, there was “a significant altercation at the car,” Wilson may well have been justified in his opening fire. This wouldn’t tell us a great deal about the second barrage of shots, of course — if the initial fight were over and Brown no longer posed a threat, those could potentially have been gratuitous. But it would tell us that the initial incident was not entirely unwarranted.
Given that a) the witness testimony is mixed, b) the autopsy has shown both that Brown was not shot in the back and that he sustained an injury at close quarters, and c) courts in the United States presume innocence, I would at this point bet against Wilson’s being prosecuted for anything — and even, perhaps, against his being indicted.