Coroner: Cuffed Black Youth Shot Himself

A coroner’s report on the death of a handcuffed black youth contradicts the police account, but still concludes he shot himself. According to police, Victor White III died on March 3 of self-inflicted gunshot wounds while handcuffed in the back seat of a Louisiana police cruiser. Six months after his death, the Iberia Parish coroner agreed in his report that White shot himself. However, he noted that White was shot in the front, not the back, which is what police had claimed. According to the police statement, White’s hands were cuffed behind his back, so a self-inflicted wound to the front seems nearly physically impossible. The coroner also failed to test White’s hands for gunpowder residue, yet still supported the police’s ultimate claim that White shot himself. The coroner found gunshot residue in White’s wound, but not the kind that close-range shots can produce. “You can’t make me understand how my son took his left hand, when he was handcuffed behind the back, and shot himself,” said White’s father. “I don’t believe a thing they’re saying at this point.”