The autopsy for 14 year-old DeOnté Rawlings, who was killed by an off-duty police officer last month, has been released — but its findings don’t provide many more clues as to what might have happened that night.
According to the Post, the autopsy report shows that Rawlings died of a gunshot wound to the back of his head. It also says that no traces of drugs or alcohol were in his blood, and more notably, that he sustained a number of unexplained cuts and bruises from blunt force trauma to his body, mostly on the left side of his face, shoulder and back. The report gives no guess as to how Rawlings might have sustained those other injuries.
A lawyer for the Rawlings family, Greg Lattimer, indicated that the additional injuries are suspicious, vaguely suggesting that the police officer who shot him, James Haskel, might have attacked Rawlings’ body after he shot him. The Post also cites anonymous police sources who said it is possible that DeOnté sustained injuries in a fall immediately after he was shot.
Given how many times Mayor Fenty has already commented on this case, we can expect a reaction from his office to the autopsy report some time today.