Video shows Miami Police officer shooting driver while on hood of moving car – NBC 6 South Florida
Wild new video shows a Miami Police officer shooting a driver through a windshield while riding on the hood of a moving car.
The footage recorded by an unknown source shows the shooting and moments after but it does not show what happened before the officer fired shots into the car near Bayfront Park on Sunday afternoon.
The video, shared with filmmaker Billy Corben and uploaded to his Instagram page, shows the officer on the hood of the moving BMW firing three shots into the car.
Moments later, the car comes to a stop, the driver runs out and puts his hands up.
A second video appears to show the driver dropping to the ground before he is placed in handcuffs by another officer.
Miami Police said the driver struck the officer with his car at Biscayne Boulevard and 2nd Street, prompting the officer to shoot him.
The driver and the officer were hospitalized.
Police haven’t released the driver’s identity but his mother and sister identified him as 21-year-old Menelek Clarke.
Family Photo
Family Photo Menelek Clarke
Clarke’s sister, Sherylann Clarke, told NBC6 she was inside the BMW at the time of the shooting.
“He was trying to move and the police officer went in front of his car again and he’s moving with his car as he’s moving trying to get out of his way so obviously they came into contact because he’s hovering over my brother’s car, touching his car. Then he pulls out his gun to shoot him,” she said.
Fernando Morales, a retired Homestead Police captain, gave his thoughts on the video and the overall case.
“When you’re investigating these things you shouldn’t look at it in 20/20 hindsight, you have to look at it with what the officer was feeling, what the total circumstances were that led to the shooting,” he said.
Morales also explained what would be considered a justified shooting by a police officer.
“To make the shooting justifiable, the officer would have had to be in fear of great bodily harm or death in order for him to fire his weapon,” he said.
Although Morales couldn’t decide on whether the officer was justified in the shooting because the video was too short, he said that it is crucial to obey an officer’s commands.
“You can see in the beginning, the officer, in the beginning of that video where the officer was yelling him to stop and he continued flowing,” he said. “Just that order alone right there, in my opinion, that subject should have stopped his vehicle. That right there, if that subject would have stopped, I think it’s reasonable to believe that it would have not escalated to this point.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is leading the investigation, which is standard practice in police shootings.
Miami Police said they won’t be commenting further on the case while it’s investigated, but said both agencies are looking at all videos related to the incident.
