In April, a Milwaukee police officer fired 14 shots toward a mentally ill Black man, Dontre Hamilton, with one of the bullets striking him in the back, according to the autopsy report released yesterday.
The Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office autopsy report showed no signs of drugs in Hamilton’s system when he died on April 30. There wasn’t any gunpowder residue near Hamilton’s wounds either, which suggests Hamilton and the officer that shot him, Christopher Manney, were not in close proximity.
The autopsy also shows that half of the shots, including the one in his back, were traveling downward. From the physical confrontation with Manney, Hamilton had abrasions on his chin, scalp, neck and arm, according to the report.
Jon Safran, the attorney for Hamilton’s family, said the photos of Manney after the incident don’t seem to show any abrasions on the officer, according to FOX News.
A prosecutor has yet to decide whether or not to file charges against Manney.
“We just want to try to correct some of the misinformation out there, at least raise some concerns to be fair that the public and news media should be asking more information from the department for them to justify how it can be described as this violent act by Dontre Hamilton against Christopher Manney,” Safran told FOX News.
Edward Flynn, the Chief of Police, announced in October that Manney was fired for not following the department procedures for dealing with emotionally disturbed people. In that news conference, Flynn described the timeline of events leading up to Hamilton’s death.
An “out of policy pat-down” led to the physical altercation between Hamilton and Manney. When Manney attempted to take out his baton, Hamilton was able to take it away. Without his baton, Flynn said that Manney feared for his life and pulled out his gun and fired multiple rounds at Hamilton.
“Despite his accurate assessment of Hamilton as an [emotionally disturbed person], Christopher Manney treated Hamilton as though he were a dangerous criminal, instead of following his training in treating Mr. Hamilton as an EDP,” Flynn said.
Only about 20 percent of Milwaukee police officers completed the 40 hours of Crisis Intervention training, which is considered to be the highest standard for educating officers on how to deal with the mentally ill, according to The Journal Sentinel. The other officers, including Manney, only attended a three-hour course.
Hamilton’s family described him as “fearful, but not dangerous or violent,” FOX News reported.
