A private autopsy requested by the family of 18-year old Michael Brown, the teen gunned down by police in a suburb of Saint Louis, showed he was shot six times, from the front – including in the eye and the top of the head.  Police had claimed that Brown had tried to grab an officer’s gun and was killed in the struggle.

But witnesses saw something entirely at odds with the police account.  Three witnesses from three different angles acknowledge there was a struggle, but that Brown had dropped to his knees and had his arms up when Officer Darren Wilson unloaded his weapon on the teen.  Brown was 193 centimeters tall.  Unless Officer Wilson was 300 centimeters tall, it’s difficult to fathom how he could have shot Brown in the top of the head if Brown wasn’t kneeling.

The autopsy, performed by former New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Michael M. Baden, also found no gunpowder residue on Brown’s body, suggesting the shots were not fired from close range in a struggle.  However, Dr. Baden did not have access to Brown’s clothing to determine if gunpowder residue was on those garments.

Earlier on Sunday, US Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a third autopsy to be conducted on Brown’s body, as the Obama administration gets more deeply involved in this mess.  The FBI is already conducting a civil rights investigation. 

The Ferguson haven’t released the local autopsy findings, nor has the department released Officer Darren Wilson’s incident report, despite Missouri’s disclosure law requiring these documents to be available to the public.