One day before Miami-Dade cops fired more than 200 bullets at a UPS truck whose driver had been taken hostage – leaving two innocent people dead – the same police agency was involved in another shooting that left an innocent woman shot.
In both cases, police have not admitted to shooting the victims but they have not placed the blame on the suspects either. And in both cases, a victim or the victim’s family have placed the blame on police.
The first shooting took place Wednesday after Miami-Dade police tried to pull a man over on a scooter for reasons they have not explained.
Police said the man began firing his gun at officers so they had to “revert to their training” which evidently means to shoot any living thing in site in the hopes of striking the suspect.
In this case, the suspect was not stuck but an innocent woman was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to her arm. Police as always insinuated that as long as no officers were shot, then all it’s good.
“The officers were not hurt,” said Miami-Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta. “If this is not the subject, then of course we’re very concerned for this individual in the event [that] he was also struck and is in need of medical attention.”
“When someone is shooting at you, obviously they have total disregard of a human life. This person is violent and dangerous, so therefore, the officers had to revert to their training, and that’s what they did,” said Zabaleta.
“Police shot me thinking that he got in the car,” Williams told WSVN. “I could have been dead. I could have been without my kids.”
Surveillance video shows the gunman trying to get into Williams’ red car but she did not let him in. Williams believes that was when she was shot. Police said they later arrested the man but have not released his name nor his charges. Watch the video footage in the news segment below.
The following day, Miami-Dade police chased a stolen UPS stuck for 23 miles before it came to a stop in rush hour traffic as news copters live streamed to the nation.The men inside had taken a UPS driver hostage after attempting to rob a jewelry store.
Videos show the cops hiding behind the cars of innocent citizens while firing at the UPS truck. When the smoke cleared, four people were dead, including UPS driver Frank Ordonez, 27, and Rick Cutshaw, a 70-year-old man who had been driving another car. The suspects, Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill, were also killed.
The video went viral, resulting in a publicity backlash against the department. But once again, police said they had no choice but to shoot because the suspects had fired upon them first.
Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Sanchez, in fact, tried to paint those cops as heroes in an interview with WSVN.
“The officers were victimized as well by being shot at, and not once did they pause or backed up or decide to go in a different direction and let these perpetrators continue, ’cause if they would have done that, and these individuals continued to carjack other people or enter other businesses nearby — where that vehicle stopped, there’s plenty of commercial establishments nearby — this could have gone worse than how it ended.”
Translation: No cops were killed so all is good.
