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Man Who Stabbed Wife, Son Shot By Police

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A man who reportedly stabbed his wife and son was shot and killed by Miami-Dade police early Thursday morning.

A close friend of the wife told CBS4's Peter D'Oench that the wife, Betsy Bisset, was stabbed once in the stomach and their son 13-year-old son was stabbed four times while trying to defend his mother.

"He was stabbed once in the hand, twice in his arm and once in his ribs," said Aurora Hernandez. She said her friend Betsy went through surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Thursday after the incident.

"I'm very sad,"  she said. "I am very sad about that. She is my friend. This is terrible. They are a very good family and I don't know what happened. He did have epilepsy and had problems with his seizures and was sometimes violent after having his seizures. He hit her in the face one time last night before the stabbing. He was crazy. He stabbed them with a kitchen knife."

Around 1:30 a.m., police received a call about a stabbing at an apartment building at SW 112th Avenue and 197th Street.

Arriving officers encountered a knife wielding man, identified as 42-year old Ernesto Medina Lopez.

"Once the officers responded they were confronted with an armed subject who did have a knife and that's when their were shots fired," said police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta.

Before their arrival, Lopez allegedly went on the rampage in which he stabbed Betsey and Ernesto.

"I was patrolling, I heard a commotion and I heard screaming, and I came out to find out what was happening," said Luis Miguel Morales, a security guard at the apartment complex where the family lives.

He said the teen ran toward him barefoot, bleeding and crying out for help.

"A teenager, I could tell he was bleeding, he was injured. I called 9-1-1 and provided all the information I had at the moment. I applied pressure to the wounds until fire rescue arrived," said Luis Miguel Morales.

The woman and her son were airlifted to the Jackson Memorial Hospital with stab wounds. Friends said they were in stable condition.

Another  friend of Bisset, who didn't want her name used in this report, said she has no words for what happened. She said Lopez had been in and out of the hospital over the past few weeks and she never thought their relationship would end like this.

The names of the officers involved in the shooting have not been released. It is not clear how many officers fired their weapons.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting, which Zabaleta says is standard practice.

Hernandez said the mother, father and son lived in the apartment with her two year-old and five year-old sons and the childrens' grandmother.

On Thursday afternoon, a CBS4 crew spotted a cleaning crew that showed up at the apartment.

The Department of Children and Families told CBS4 that it has opened an investigation because of this incident. DCF says it has no prior history of problems with this family.

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