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homicide Mike Brown Mike Brown Shooting

Justice Department Ruled Mike Brown’s Death a “Homicide”

Another step in trying to find some form of justice for Mike Brown came today in the release of an autopsy report conducted by the Justice Department, and the findings of a homicide in Brown’s killing.

A federal autopsy of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen whose fatal shooting by a white police officer set off nationwide protests, found he died from multiple gunshot wounds and described his death as a “homicide.”

The findings of the Justice Department post-mortem released on Monday echoed those of two previous autopsies carried out by St. Louis County’s medical examiner and a private examiner hired by the Brown family. It found that Brown — who was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9 — suffered “severe injuries of the skull, brain and right chest” and appeared to have been shot in the hand at close range. “The manner of death is homicide,” the Justice Department’s medical examiner ruled.

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homicide Politics

Study Finds Link between Gun Ownership and Homicide

This piece of statistical evidence will be disputed by the guns don’t kill people, people kill people reasoning of the NRA in 3,2,1…

The study, which appears in the American Journal of Public Health, challenges the National Rifle Association’s claim that increased gun ownership does not lead to higher levels of gun violence.

Covering 30 years from 1981 and all 50 US states, it determined that for every one percentage point in the prevalence of gun ownership in a given state, the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent.

In the absence of state-level data on household gun ownership, the study used a proxy variable — the percentage of a state’s suicides committed with a firearm — that has been validated in previous research.

The study, led by Boston University community health sciences professor Michael Siegel, is the first of its kind since the December 2012 mass shooting of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown … many states are considering legislation to control firearm-related deaths,” said Siegel in a statement.

“This research is the strongest to date to document that states with higher levels of gun ownership have disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides,” he said.

“It suggests that measures which succeed in decreasing the overall prevalence of guns will lower firearm homicide rates.”

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homicide murder Sports

Oscar Pistorius Brother Carl Facing Homicide Charge

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The brother of Olympic star Oscar Pistorius is facing a culpable homicide charge for a 2008 road death, compounding problems for the family after the double-amputee runner was charged with premeditated murder in the Feb. 14 shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Lawyer Kenny Oldwage said in a statement that Carl had been involved in a car accident “in which a woman motorcyclist sadly lost her life.” He said that “there is no doubt that Carl is innocent and the charge will be challenged in court.”

Carl Pistorius was already in court last Thursday, as his brother Oscar was facing a bail hearing, and will appear again at the end of next month.

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