City of Miami police have shot a suspect armed with a shotgun in Liberty City, leaving the man seriously wounded -- and giving Chief Miguel Exposito a new round of questions to answer about violence in the neighborhood.
Update: The suspect, who died overnight, has been identified as 22-year-old Brandon Foster.
Foster has only a pair of minor drug charges in 2006 on his record, according to Riptide's records search. A judge withheld adjudication on a count of marijuana possession, while another count of possessing drug paraphernalia was dropped.
Exposito addressed a horde of reporters around 6 p.m. from behind a long
band of police tape blocking off NW 46th St. at 12th Ave. He said
undercover officers hit a suspect with several rounds and that police
were still waiting for word on whether he survived.
Around 5 p.m., police received a call that someone was walking in the area armed with an AK-47, Exposito says.
When several undercover officers arrived on the scene, they found the man in fact had a shotgun. Shots were fired after they confronted the man near the entrance to Allapattah Middle School.
Exposito declined to say how many officers fired or to name the police involved, but a source tells Riptide that at least three officers fired shots.
The man was airlifted to a hospital, the chief says, and a shotgun was found on the scene.
The shooting is sure to intensify pressure on Exposito, who is already feeling heat from leaders in Miami's predominantly black neighborhoods.
Miami police have shot and killed four other men this year in Overtown, Liberty City and Little Haiti. In a Herald story on Sunday, Mayor Tomas Regalado didn't rush to support the police chief, telling the paper, "It's all on Exposito."
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