The man that was shot multiple times and killed by police in Miami Beach on Memorial Day 2011, does not appear to have fired a weapon, according to a report obtained by The Miami Herald.
Raymond Herisse was killed after he allegedly used his car as a battering ram aimed at other cops. Police initially said that Herisse was unarmed and had used his vehicle as a weapon. Days later, police officials said a semiautomatic pistol had been found inside the vehicle.
But the report shows that Herisse did not test positive for gunpowder residue.
Then-Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega said Herisse had tried to hit officers with his car. Eventually, the car came to a stop.
Herisse's car was then surrounded by several officers who fired dozens of rounds at the car, police said. He was dead on the scene.
“Any notion that Raymond fired a gun out of his vehicle, which may have allegedly given justification to unleash 100 rounds in his vehicle, is unfounded,” the Herisse family lawyer, Marwan Porter, told the newspaper.
But police told the Herald that despite the report results, the shooting was fair.
“Regardless of whether or not he had gunshot residue on his hands, the guy was clearly a threat in an automobile that can take out a bunch of people,” Fraternal Order of Police President Alex Bello told the newspaper. “Clearly, he was not going to give up. He ran over an officer’s bike, injuring him, and he started crashing into vehicles.”
Herisse’s family, who filed a lawsuit in 2012 to get access to police records, said they had exhausted all their efforts to get the official records to see what happened. But a judge ruled that most of the records could not be released because of the pending criminal probe.
Various bystanders were also hit by bullets and taken to local hospital on Memorial Day 2011, authorities said.
Police said two Miami Beach officers and a Hialeah officer were also injured by gunfire. Three other Hialeah police officers were also involved in the shooting, police confirmed.
“This all but rules out any theory that my client was struck by anything other than a weapon fired by a Miami Beach or Hialeah police officer,” said Miami lawyer L. Elijah Stiers, who represents wounded bystander Carlson Saint Louis.
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