Miami police officer shot knife wielding man near Jackson Memorial Hospital
MIAMI - A Miami police officer was forced to fire his weapon Friday morning on the campus of Jackson Memorial Hospital.
A new cell phone video obtained by CBS News Miami shows the man in the ground with a knife and then running away from police.
Albert Crist a witness used his cell phone to capture the incident as did Lazaro Cruz.
Crist said, "I saw police running down the street after him."
A police source told CBS News Miami's Peter D'Oench that the man with the knife is 32, is from the state of Washington and has no criminal record.
It happened in the area of NW 9th Avenue and NW 17th Street. This is on the east side of the hospital complex, about a block away from the Emergency Department entrance.
According to police, they received a call about a violent dispute between two men around 9:50 a.m.
"When officers did arrive to the area, which was in the area of NW 7th and NW 8th Avenue and 17th Street, they did encounter one male that indeed was armed with a knife. One officer subsequently discharges his firearm, striking the subject. At that time the subject fled toward JMH where officers were able to apprehend him," said Miami-Dade police spokesman Rafael Horta.
He said officers rendered aid and the injured man was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Rebecca Fields, who was in the hospital, witnessed the shooting.
"When the police got there, there was a bunch of them with cars and running after him, they had guns and Tasers. They were trying to get him to drop the knife and he wouldn't. He was just standing there and they were staying back because he was holding a knife. The next thing you know, it looks like they shot him. I don't know if it was just shooting but there were also Tasers, and the guy got on the ground. I kind of assumed it was Tasers because he was laying on the ground shaking. But it did look like a gunshot also," she said.
She said the man who was shot appeared determined and "crazy."
"After that happened. He did put one knife down but then he got up, ran into the middle of the street, and then pulled out another knife. He had a really big knife, trying to cross the street looking back at them, holding the knife at them. They didn't shoot him, there were so many people out. They were trying to take him down then and he kept going across toward Bascom Palmer. That's the last I could see. My husband, when he came up to see if I was okay, where it first started he saw a folding knife on the ground with blood, so I guess we kind of assumed they did shoot because it looked like he had been shot," said Fields.
The police said no officers were injured.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate the officer-involved shooting.
Fields says she believed police were justified.
"He was not stopping. He was not putting his knife down. He was not listening to them."
