A man is in serious condition after a police-involved shooting in Miami's Model City neighborhood. The incident occurred yesterday and was captured on video, showing the 40-year-old identified by family members as Donald Armstrong wielding a sharp object on his front porch before being shot by officers.
According to WSVN, police responded to a call about a man possibly high on narcotics creating a disturbance around Northwest 58th Street and Seventh Court shortly after 2 p.m. The video, which witnesses took, depicts Armstrong accompanied by another woman and man before being shot. Officers attempted to use a Taser twice which did not seem to subdue Armstrong before they made the decision to to open fire.
After the tasing and Armstrong's apparent lunge or stumble towards the officers with the sharp object still in hand, police discharged their guns. "Shoot! Shoot in the heart!" Armstrong is heard saying in the video before he was shot multiple times, as WSVN reported. A witness described hearing the gunshots and smelling gunpowder, questioning, "What did this guy even do?"
Local resident Dan Davidson told Local 10 News, “I was up on my balcony. I was petting my cats and stuff, you know, looking over, chilling out, and all of a sudden I hear like six gunshots, at least six gunshots, one right after the other, ‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.’” Miami Police Capt. Freddie Cruz then explained the officers' actions stating, "They did deploy the Taser, so they had the non-lethal, but the weapon that they used it, it had no effect, so then that officer made the determination to fire for everyone’s safety."
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been made the lead agency in the ongoing investigation of the shooting. Armstrong was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center where he remains in serious condition. As the inquiry continues, Armstrong's family and neighbors have called for a full investigation, with some branding the incident an overreaction.
