A preliminary autopsy report released Tuesday showed that a teenager killed by a police officer was shot twice in the back and once in the chest, but it failed to answer whether the victim was shot while on the ground.
Joetavious Stafford, 19, of Atlanta was killed by MARTA police Officer Robert Waldo, 31, at about 10:20 p.m. Saturday outside the Vine City train station.
He was killed when police responded to a gunshot during a fight, MARTA officials said. Rodney Stafford told Channel 2 Action News that his brother was shot after he raised his hands.
MARTA officials said Joetavious Stafford was armed, but they refused to answer whether he was shot in the back or while on the ground. Rodney Stafford disputed the claim that his brother was armed.
The autopsy has answered at least one of those questions.
Fulton County Chief Medical Examiner Randy Hanzlick, in a press release, wrote, "There were three gunshot entry wounds. There were no exit wounds and three bullets were recovered. One of the entry wounds was located on the left front chest area, another was on the left side of the mid-back, and the third was near the mid-lower back."
The autopsy does not indicate Stafford's position when he was shot or the order in which the shots occurred. None of the entry wounds appeared to be close range or contact wounds. The cause of death is gunshot wounds of the torso, Hanzlick said.
The full results of the autopsy conducted Sunday by Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Michele Stauffenberg, including the notes, were not released.
Waldo has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the results of a GBI inquiry.
Rodney Stafford told Channel 2 Action News his sibling was involved in a melee when a shot was fired by somebody in the crowd. He contends Waldo ran toward the fight and shot his brother after he halted.
"My brother threw his hands up. MARTA police shot him in the back. Pow," Stafford told Channel 2. "And my brother lying on the ground, just looking at me and I was looking at his gunshot wound. As I'm looking at that, MARTA police shot him two more times in the back."
The shooting happened near the Georgia Dome, where high school football games were played Saturday night.
MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris said witnesses said Stafford was armed. He would not comment further on details, citing the GBI investigation.
Dale Mann, director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday that even if it turned out that Stafford was unarmed, the shooting still could be ruled justifiable.
Mann said the law requires a "reasonableness test," in which investigators look at the shooting from the perspective of the officer, who is often placed in "tense, rapidly evolving situations."
If the officer reasonably believed somebody was armed and placed either the officer or the public in danger, the shooting could be called justified, Mann said.
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