Michael Brown Shooting Protests Continue as Gunfire Erupts
Violent overnight protests in the Michael Brown shooting Monday night ended with two people shot. According to police accounts and NBC News footage, authorities sent several rounds of teargas into a crowd to disperse them. Police said that they did not fire the shots.
The ongoing protests were fueled by the emergence of more information about the shooting of Michael Brown. According to an independent autopsy report ordered by Brown’s family, he was shot 6 times.
The report shows that it’s likely Brown could have survived the first five shots by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, which were to his right arm. The preliminary autopsy reports, according to ABC News, show that one of two final shots to Michael’s head was lethal.
Those last two shots also show that Brown had his head down, which could mean that his head was tilted forward at the time he was shot. Experts have said that means he could have either been leaning forward, falling, or charging ahead. Scratches on his face show that he fell flat without any protection.
The number of eyewitness accounts in Brown’s shooting are mainly limited to Officer Wilson and a friend of Michael, Dorian Johnson. Part of Johnson’s account that has been called into question is that he saw Brown shot in the back. The autopsy shows that to likely be false.
Another man who claims to have witnessed the shooting, Emanuel Freeman. Freeman allegedly live tweeted comments and photos of the shooting, showing Brown’s dead body face down on the street with police standing over him according to a story in The Telegraph.
Freeman’s Twitter account has continued to show comments and accounts of rioting in Ferguson, but an analysis of his tweets by The Telegraph show that he said he just saw someone shot. There are also several photos of the crime scene afterward. It hasn’t been confirmed if the photos are of Michael Brown.
The Michael Brown shooting has led to over a week of violence between police and protesters, and Monday night’s violence came just after a confrontation between protesters and police was diffused.
Along the way, few new details have emerged about Brown, other than the fact that he was about to be a student at vocational school Vatterott Educational Centers, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
According to a Ferguson police report that was released to the media last Friday, Brown was the primary suspect in a convenience store robbery. The report states that he was caught on surveillance video stealing cigars with an accomplice. Photos of Michael Brown posted online also show him flashing what look like gang signs.
