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Diallo Autopsy Graphics
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| Prosecution
forensic pathologist Dr. Joseph Cohen performed the autopsy
on Amadou Diallo and concluded that three of his 19 gunshot
wounds suggest the officers continued to shoot him when he was
already down or on the way down. One bullet, Cohen said, entered
the front of Diallo's left shin and travelled up the leg from
the front to the rear. Another entered through the bottom of
Diallo's right shoe, wounding his third right toe and travelling
upwards; the third wound showed that a bullet entered Diallo's
right shin and travelled in a "strikingly upward trajectory"
until it lodged in an area behind the knee. |
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| According
to Cohen, the only way Diallo could have been standing upright
when he suffered the wound was if one of the officers was standing
directly below him and shooting upwards. If Diallo had been
standing up, the bullet would have traveled horizontally from
the shin to the back of the leg, not directly up the leg. |
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| Cohen
told jurors how multiple gunshot wounds tore through Diallo's
spine, spinal cord, aorta, kidneys, spleen and intestines. Given
the number of injuries, Cohen said, he was surprised by the
lack of hemorrhaging: there was a noticeable lack of blood on
Diallo's body and clothes. Cohen concluded that the wound to
victim's aorta may have come before the other shots. [The aorta,
the human body's largest artery, pumps blood to the other parts
of the body.] Dr. Cohen concluded that when the bullet perforated
Diallo's aorta, the heart was unable to pump blood to the rest
of the body, thereby accounting for the lack of blood in the
other, apparently subsequent, wounds. In his examination, the
doctor found that approximately 45 percent of Diallo's blood
had leaked into his chest cavity. |
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| Cohen
believed that Diallo would have gone down quickly from the gunshot
wound to his aorta. However, the medical examiner also indicated
that gun-inflicted paralysis and broken bones may have caused
Diallo to fall during the shooting. While the defense claims
that Diallo remained standing for a time during the shooting,
Cohen told jurors the bullet that passed through Diallo's aorta
also perforated his spine and spinal cord. Diallo, the doctor
said, would have been paralyzed from the waist down and falling
at some point during the stream of 41 bullets. In addition,
the bullets also broke bones in Diallo's left leg (the tibia
and fibula), making it increasingly difficult for him to stand. |
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| For
the record, Cohen concluded that Diallo died from the multiple
gunshot wounds he suffered during his encounter with the officers.
But defense pathologist Richard Mason and ballistics expert Martin Fackler disagreed with Cohen, telling jurors that the 16 wounds to Diallo's left side suggest that he was upright for much of the shooting. According to Dr. Mason, most of the bullets travelled from Diallo's left side to his right side. The momentum of the bullets, Mason said, made Diallo's body turn counter-clockwise. As Diallo's body turned, Mason told jurors, he was hit by the bullet that pierced his aorta and damaged his spine and spinal cord. While he did not claim to know the exact order of the injuries, Mason believed that the bullet to the chest was one of the last wounds Diallo suffered — and felled him "late" in the few seconds of the shooting.
Dr. Fackler believed that the chest wound was suffered in the "last half" of the fusillade that struck Diallo. Though he could not determine the exact order of the injuries, he believed that Diallo could not have been lying flat during much of the shooting. According to Fackler, a wound Diallo suffered to the left side of his back travelled across his body and may have caused him to lose the strength in his legs.
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Diallo
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