Autopsy: New Orleans police shot man in back at convention center after Hurricane Katrina

An autopsy shows that a man who was killed by police in the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina was shot from behind, a lawyer for the man's family said Wednesday.

Danny Brumfield, 45, was killed by Officer Ronald Mitchell early Sept. 3, 2005, just before the National Guard arrived to evacuate the convention center. Police said he was shot because he appeared to be attacking an officer, but Brumfield's family has sued disputing that account.

The Sept. 12, 2005, autopsy report, obtained by CNN and confirmed by the Brumfield family's lawyer, said shotgun pellets went straight from back to front.

"They were standing right behind him when they shot him," said the attorney, Robert C. Jenkins Jr.

District Attorney Eddie Jordan did not return a call to The Associated Press on Wednesday. A spokesman for the coroner declined to comment.

Police said Mitchell and his partner heard what appeared to be a gunshot, and a man jumped onto the hood of their squad car swinging something shiny in an apparent attack.

Jordan told CNN that he did not feel the autopsy alone was enough to prove criminal wrongdoing by the officer. Brumfield might have been turning or falling off the patrol car when he was shot, Jordan said.

The family of someone who is autopsied should be able to get such reports for a $60 (euro43) fee. Jenkins said he had asked for one soon after the Brumfields retained him, and was told there had not been an autopsy.

The document has the phrase "THIS DOCUMENT NOT TO BE REPRODUCED" stamped at the top of every page and over the pathologist's signature. Jenkins suggested the stamp could be evidence of a possible cover-up.

Jenkins showed another autopsy report without the stamp on any page. "I don't think anybody has done more murder cases in this city than I have. I've never seen it," he said.

John Gagliano, chief investigator for the Orleans Parish coroner's office, said the instruction is standard procedure. "It's a legal document and should not be reproduced."

Gagliano said he could not comment on Brumfield's autopsy because he had not seen the report. He would not provide a copy of the report to The Associated Press, saying CNN "got it by court order. That's the only way we would do it, by court order."

Brumfield initially was listed among victims of Hurricane Katrina soon after the city flooded. But the next month, police confirmed he had been shot by Mitchell. The police statement at the time described the incident as an attempted murder of a police officer.

Family members who witnessed the shooting said the officer who shot Brumfield first struck him twice with the squad car _ a nudge the first time, and then a heavier bump. That was when he leaped onto the hood and was shot, they said. Afterward, they said the squad car ran over him, and other officers did not come to investigate for several hours.

No charges were filed in Brumfield's shooting.