Justice Department's Autopsy of Michael Brown Is Released

A federal autopsy of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen whose fatal shooting by a white police officer set off nationwide protests, found he died from multiple gunshot wounds and described his death as a 'homicide.'

The findings of the Justice Department post-mortem released on Monday echoed those of two previous autopsies carried out by St. Louis County's medical examiner and a private examiner hired by the Brown family. It found that Brown - who was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9 - suffered 'severe injuries of the skull, brain and right chest' and appeared to have been shot in the hand at close range. 'The manner of death is homicide,' the Justice Department's medical examiner ruled.

The St. Louis Prosecutor's office on Monday released the Justice Department's autopsy, witness interviews conducted by federal authorities and a slew of audio recordings of police transmissions leading up to and following the shooting. The release came weeks after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict officer Darren Wilson in Brown's death - a move which triggered new protests. One of the audio recordings released Monday underscored the rage around the shooting which has since boiled over. 'You need several more units over here. There's going to be a problem,' one officer says to a dispatcher. 'We're going to need crowd control.'

IN-DEPTH - Tom Winter

First published December 9 2014, 12:59 AM