St. Louis’ chief medical examiner said Friday that an 18-year-old man shot by police died from a bullet that entered the middle of his back, the New York Times reports. Police said they shot Mansur Ball-Bey after he pointed a gun at officers.

At a news conference outside Police Headquarters, St. Louis police chief, Sam Dotson, asked people to be patient. “We are still in the early stages of the investigation, and the new facts by themselves do not paint a complete picture,” Chief Dotson said.

Dotson said that police recovered a gun at the scene of the shooting, Reuters reports, although it has not yet been determined whether Ball-Bey’s fingerprints were on it.

However, the autopsy’s results already appear to contradict the description of the shooting given by police, who said that Ball-Bey pointed a gun at two officers after he fled the house where they were serving a search warrant. According to Reuters, police said that after he was shot Ball-Bey dropped his gun and continued running.

St. Louis Chief Medical Examiner announced the autopsy’s findings at a press conference, saying that the position and track of the bullet, which struck Ball-Bey in the upper right part of his back and hit his heart and an adjacent artery, show that he could not have been turned towards the officers when he was shot. From Reuters:

The position and track of the bullet, which did not exit Ball-Bey’s body, show that he was not turned toward officers when he was shot, Graham said. The shot would have killed him nearly instantly, making it difficult if not impossible for him to keep running, though if he was running there would have been some forward momentum, Graham said.

Graham said it was impossible to tell from the autopsy whether Ball-Bey was slightly turned, or was twisting his torso toward officers when he was shot.

“There are so many variables,” said Graham. “But he certainly wasn’t facing, his chest wasn’t facing the officers.”

The city’s prosecutor, Jennifer M. Joyce, said her office was going to begin a parallel investigation to the police’s. According to the Times, the prosecutor generally waits for the police investigation to conclude before opening its own.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.