A police officer held on to the hood of a car and fired several shots through the windshield at the driver in a chaotic scene in Miami.
Cell phone footage captured the moment that the officer, wearing a neon reflective vest and directing traffic, clung to a black BMW as it turned at Biscayne Boulevard and NE 2nd Street near a downtown park.
After three rounds sounded off, the car stopped in the middle of the intersection and the driver ran out, the clip obtained by Local 10 News on Tuesday shows. The officer also got on his feet and made his way around the passenger’s side of the vehicle to pursue the driver.
The driver quickly got on the ground and rolled over onto his stomach as another officer got on top of him and handcuffed him.
Blood stains showed on the driver’s white shirt.
He sustained several gunshot wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital.
The dramatic incident unfolded as the Best of the Best International Music Festival, which dubs itself the largest Caribbean festival in North America, was taking place at Bayfront Park on Sunday.
According to the Miami Police Department, the officer ‘was struck by a vehicle while directing traffic during an extra-duty assignment’ and ‘in response to the incident, the officer discharged his firearm, striking the driver of the vehicle’.
Officers and Miami fire rescue personnel ‘immediately rendered aid at the scene’ and both the driver and officer were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’, stated the department.
But Sherlyann Clarke, the driver’s sister, said that her 21-year-old brother, Menelek Clarke, was simply looking for a place to park.
‘The patrol officer, we were all stopped, we were in the middle lane,’ she told the TV station.
‘He told everyone else to go with his hand — hand signaling that we can go. And then he stood in front of my brother’s car and shot him.’
Sherlyann insisted that ‘it wasn’t intentional to hit’ the officer and that ‘the man moved with the car as he was going around him’.
‘The case is being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) as well as by our Internal Affairs Section which is standard in any Officer Involved Shooting,’ the police department told Metro on Wednesday.
‘Since the case remains open, we are not at liberty to provide any further details as the investigation continues.’
Assistant Police Chief Armando Aguilar told Local 10 News that they are not sure what happened exactly.
‘We do know there was physical contact between the officer and the vehicle,’ said Aguilar.
Menelek ‘felt like he was gonna die’, his sister said.
‘I feel like he was wrongfully shot multiple times in his vehicle with no weapon,’ she said.
It happened more than a year after a conspiracy theory emerged of a 10-foot silver alien sighting near the Bayside Marketplace shopping mall, which is adjacent to Bayfront Park.
