Three national pathologists say Mississippi’s chief medical examiner should have labeled the cause of death as homicide for Damien Cameron, a Black Braxton, Miss., resident whose mother alleges that two white Rankin County deputies knelt on his back for over 20 minutes, causing his death in July 2021.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Staci Turner said Damien Cameron’s cause of death was “undetermined” despite his body being swollen, bloody and bruised when it came to her office.
“Due to lack of access to information involving the circumstance of this death, the cause and manner of death are best classified as undetermined,” she wrote in the report.
Mississippi State Medical Examiner Dr. Staci Turner said Damien Cameron’s cause of death was “undetermined” in his autopsy report, pictured. Photo courtesy Clorissa Wright
The Mississippi Free Press requested an interview with Turner but did not hear from her by press time.
The New York Times and Mississippi Today asked three pathologists to review Damien Cameron’s autopsy photos, hospital records, sheriff’s reports and eyewitness statements, and the experts determined that the officers probably killed the 29-year-old.
“There’s really nothing to be undetermined about,” Dr. Zhongxue Hua, chief of the forensic pathology division at Rutgers University, told The New York Times.
Damien Cameron’s mother, Monica Lee Cameron, said at a press conference on June 22, 2023, that she saw Deputy Hunter Elward chase her son around the family’s house and through the woods, tase him multiple times, wrestle him to the ground, and kneel on his back until Deputy Luke Stickman arrived and joined Elward. The pair handcuffed Damien Cameron and dragged him to the police car while he was barely breathing, his mother says.
“This person died of asphyxia because of neck compression,” Dr. Michael Baden, former New York City chief medical examiner who testified in the O.J. Simpson trial and who performed an autopsy of George Floyd, told The New York Times.
Damien Cameron, pictured here, lies bloody, bruised and swollen in a hospital on July 26, 2021. Photo courtesy Clorissa Wright
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation’s July 25, 2022, incident report does not
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