A medical examiner has changed her original hypothesis and ruled that a man who went down in a storm of police bullets last month actually committed suicide first.
Jorge Luis Santiago was gunned down on Nov. 4 during a standoff with police. Law enforcement officers fired at least 12 bullets at Santiago after he shot and injured his estranged wife, whom he was holding hostage.Immediately after shooting his wife, Santiago fired a bullet into his own chest. He fired a second shot at his wife while eight officers shot at him.
Salt Lake police detectives classified the death as a homicide based partly on evidence from an initial autopsy. The cause of his death was believed to be a combination of the bullet Santiago fired upon himself and another round from a Utah Highway Patrol trooper that penetrated Santiago's abdomen and passed through vital organs, said Lt. Dennis Tueller.
The medical examiner originally said the self-inflicted wound may not have been fatal had Santiago received immediate medical treatment.
But Tuesday, assistant medical examiner Maureen Frikke officially classified the death as a suicide.
She determined that the wound from the bullet that tore through Santiago's vital organs had little bleeding associated with it, indicating that Santiago had likely died before that injury occurred. The self-inflicted shot, however, was the only gunshot wound that had significant bleeding associated with it.
Video taken from news agencies shows that the shots from officers came almost immediately after Santiago shot himself.
Detectives said they will study the autopsy report and consider categorizing the death as a suicide instead of a homicide.
Salt Lake County Attorney David Yocom said he will study the autopsy report before making a final determination whether the eight officers were justified in shooting Santiago.