Teen Killed By St. Louis Cops Was Shot In The Back, Autopsy Finds

A black teenager killed by police in St. Louis on Wednesday morning died from a single gunshot wound in the back, according to preliminary autopsy results .

Officers shot 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey while attempting to execute a search warrant  in the northern part of the city. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson had said that the officers ordered Ball-Bey and another armed man to drop their weapons, and that Ball-Bey raised his weapon before an officer shot him.

St. Louis Chief Medical Examiner Michael Graham said Friday that a bullet entered Ball-Bey's body through his back and struck his heart, according to Reuters . Graham added that the position and track of the bullet indicated that the young man was not turned toward officers when he was shot.

Dotson said Friday that the autopsy does not disprove the officer's account of Ball-Bey's death.

"Just because he was shot in the back doesn't mean he was running away," the chief told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . "It could be, and I'm not saying that it doesn't mean that. I just don't know yet."

Both officers involved in the incident are white, according to St. Louis police. They were both placed on administrative leave following the shooting.

Jermaine Wooten, a lawyer for Ball-Bey's family, said witnesses have told him that Ball-Bey did not have a gun.

The young man's death quickly incited peaceful protests  near where he'd been shot, with around two dozen people partially blocking a nearby intersection. At around 3 p.m. Wednesday, officers in riot gear showed up in a militarized police vehicle, local activist Tony Rice told HuffPost at the time.

The scene became more chaotic later that evening. By around 7 p.m., around 300 protesters had convenened at the intersection. Police said that some people threw rocks, bricks and water bottles at them, and officers tear-gassed the area. Dotson stated that police gave warnings about the tear gas, though Rice maintained that there were no warnings and that the gas hit some people who were merely sitting on their front porches.

"The SWAT tank literally rode down a practically empty street and shot the gas into the air," Brittany Packnett, a Ferguson Commission member and executive director of Teach For America in St. Louis, said on Twitter. "Where protestors weren't. Where kids were."

At around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, someone set a mattress on fire. Police arrested nine people in all, eight for impeding traffic and one for resisting arrest.

Police shot Ball-Bey on the one-year anniversary of the death of 25-year-old Kajieme Powell . A convenience store owner called police because he suspected Powell was stealing drinks and doughnuts, while another woman reported that Powell was acting erratically and had a knife in his pocket.

Though cops initially said Powell came within three to four feet of them holding a knife over his head, cell phone footage shows Powell approaching at a greater distance, with his hands at his sides, when police opened fire within 15 seconds of arriving on the scene.

Officers on the St. Louis City police force are not equipped with body cameras. In April, Dotson cited concerns over cost and said there were no immediate plans  to begin outfitting his officers with the devices. Last year, Richard Gray, the city's public safety director, predicted that it would cost the department about $1.2 million  to launch a body camera program, on top of additional annual costs to cover labor, maintenance and data storage. The St. Louis Police Department's 2016 budget is over $125 million, according to a plan recently adopted by the city .

Contact the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com.