Autopsy finds 39 bullet wounds on man shot by police

An autopsy on a man killed in a July gunfight with Atlanta police revealed the man had several gunshot wounds to the back but could not confirm what his family claimed — that an officer stood over Montellis Clark’s body and fired numerous shots into his back.

The autopsy on Clark, 28, revealed a total of 39 gunshot entrance wounds — five in his back, according to the autopsy report obtained Tuesday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an Open Records Act request.

Clark’s gunshot injuries included 19 wounds to the chest and back, 12 to his legs, six to his arms and one wound each to his buttocks and neck.

But it’s possible that some wounds were caused by the same bullet if, for instance, a bullet pierced Clark’s arm before entering his stomach, said Dr. Karen Sullivan of the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, who performed the autopsy July 16.

The shooting occurred July 15 outside a southwestern Atlanta home on Cascade Road that was being renovated by the then-boyfriend of Clark’s mother, Melissa Clark. Police said that Montellis Clark fired first after being told to pull his hands out of his pockets.

Officers Clarence Tosh and Gregory Dubose returned fire, also striking Clark’s brother, Tim Clark, 25, once in the back. Melissa Clark, who witnessed the incident, was not injured.

When reached by phone Wednesday evening, Melissa Clark said she did not have her son’s autopsy results and didn’t want to know how many times he was shot. She already knows he was shot many times because she was there, she said.

“It didn’t take that many shots,” Clark said. “Once he was shot once, that was enough.”

In a phone interview Tuesday, Sullivan said the autopsy could not determine whether Clark was on the ground or standing when he was shot in the back.

Sullivan also said she did not find evidence that Clark was shot at close range, though she couldn’t say what distance was considered close range or how far away the officers were when they shot Clark.

She added that the gunshot wounds on Clark’s body had no soot or gunpowder particles — evidence of being shot at close range — but she could not definitively say that his clothing was free of either.

Dubose suffered a minor gunshot wound to the face, and Tosh’s bulletproof vest stopped a bullet to his chest.