Posted: 12/29/2014 5:49 pm EST
LOS ANGELES -- The official autopsy report for Ezell Ford, an unarmed, mentally ill black man shot to death by Los Angeles police in August, was released by the county coroner's office Monday after the Los Angeles Police Department lifted an investigative hold that had blocked the report from public view for over four months.
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| Candles burn at a memorial for Ezell Ford in Los Angeles. (Photo by Mintana Neslihan Eroglu) | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images |
The coroner's investigation ruled Ford's death a homicide by multiple gunshot wounds.
Ford, 25, was killed by LAPD officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas, both on gang enforcement detail, shortly after 8 p.m. on Aug. 11 in the Florence neighborhood of South LA. The report provides the first detailed account from authorities of his injuries. According to the autopsy report, Ford was shot three times, resulting in two fatal wounds and one nonfatal.
The skin around the fatal wound in Ford's back had a "muzzle imprint," which suggests that the shot was taken at close range. The second fatal wound was in Ford's side abdomen. A third wound, ruled nonfatal by the coroner's investigation, was on his right arm. "An autopsy does not prescribe motivation or indicate propriety -- in this case, is it a legal killing or not," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a press conference later on Monday.
"There is nothing in the coroner's report that is inconsistent with the officers' accounts," Beck said, but added that the investigation is still incomplete. A trace amount of marijuana was also found in Ford's system, according to a toxicology report. Because THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, can linger in the human body, however, its presence does not mean that Ford was intoxicated at the time of his death. more
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