An audit of past rulings by a controversial medical examiner found that 36 cases of police custody deaths deemed accidents should have instead been classified as homicides.
The comprehensive review of 87 determinations regarding deaths resulting from police use of force stretched back 16 years from 2003 to 2019. It highlights the often questionable conclusions the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) used to determine that police were not culpable.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, whose agency managed the audit of former Chief Medical Examiner Dr. David Fowler, said the audit was disturbing and that the reclassified cases warranted further scrutiny.
“These findings are of great concern and demand further review,” Brown wrote in the preface of the report.
The report is simply an audit. It does not formally reclassify any of the cases that have been reviewed. Normally, changing an autopsy determination requires a hearing in front of a judge.
The push to examine Fowler’s past rulings came after he testified at the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was charged with murder after video surfaced of him sitting on George Floyd’s neck for roughly nine minutes. Floyd later died at a nearby hospital.
The case sparked outrage and nationwide protests.
Fowler testified that Floyd did not die from positional asphyxiation, the result of the downward pressure of Chauvin’s knee. Instead, he attributed carbon monoxide poisoning from a nearby tailpipe to be the primary cause.
The testimony sent shockwaves through the medical community. An open letter penned by roughly 450 medical experts called for a review of Fowler’s rulings in light of his testimony. The pushback prompted the state to undertake a comprehensive audit, the findings of which were released in a 90-page report.
But prior to Fowler’s testimony and the subsequent review of his rulings, family members of victims and activists had been calling attention to his determinations. TRNN also consulted an independent pathologist to review Fowler’s cases.
Among them is the death of a 19-year-old Eastern Shore resident, Anton Black.
Hellbound and Down 