By Jerome L. Sherman
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania State Police troopers Samuel Nassan and Juan Curry each shot at 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe on Christmas Eve 2002 in Uniontown, a forensic pathologist told jurors in federal court today, contradicting arguments made by the troopers’ attorney.
Dr. Werner Spitz, a former medical examiner for Wayne County, Mich., said the boy’s wounds -- on his back, chest and left biceps -- could have been produced only by two bullets.
He was hired by the legal team representing the boy’s father, Michael Hickenbottom, who is suing the troopers.
Their attorney, Andrew K. Fletcher, has said that only Trooper Nassan fired at the boy, hitting him in the back and killing him, after Trooper Curry’s gun accidentally went off. Trooper Nassan said he thought Michael had fired at his partner.
They had been pursuing him as he fled from a stolen car.
An autopsy performed after the incident said Michael had only been hit by one bullet, but Dr. Spitz, who reviewed the report, called that claim “hocus pocus.”
Geoffrey Fieger, Mr. Hickenbottom’s lawyer, asked the doctor: How does a bullet come out of the chest and hit the bicep?
“It doesn’t,” he responded.
Copyright 2008 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette