Autopsy shows St. Louis teen was shot in the back by police
By Megan Specia From Mashable
A preliminary autopsy of an 18-year-old black man shot dead by St. Louis police earlier this week shows he was shot in the back.
Mansur Ball-Bey’s death Wednesday ignited outrage in a community scarred by strained relations between police and residents.
Police say they were searching a residence when two suspects in a multi-family house fled, and one pointed a weapon at police. Two officers shot at the men, and Ball-Bey died at the scene, authorities said.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department released a statement saying the preliminary autopsy showed Ball-Bey died as a result of a “single fatal gunshot wound to his back.”
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson said the wound’s location did not prove or disprove officer accounts that Ball-Bey refused to drop the gun and, instead, pointed it at the officers before being shot.
“Just because he was shot in the back doesn’t mean he was running away,” Dotson told local newspaper St. Louis Today. “It could be, and I’m not saying that it doesn’t mean that. I just don’t know yet.
“What I do know is that two officers were involved and fired shots, but I don’t know exactly where they were standing yet and I won’t know until I get their statements,” said Dotson, who noted that the investigation into the shooting was still underway.
An attorney for Ball-Bey’s family says witnesses told him Ball-Bey was unarmed.
Activists are condemning the St. Louis Police Department for the shooting, with some likening Ball-Bey’s death to murder.
A University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist, David Klinger, says the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it constitutional for police to shoot someone in the back if they believe that person could be a threat.
IMAGE: Police stand Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015, near the scene of an officer-involved shooting Wednesday night in St. Louis. ROBERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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