Tiniko Thompson was in the house when Miami Police Officer Carl Patrick was shot and killed in a Pembroke Pines home last week. She broke her silence exclusively to NBC 6 Monday to say she has been misrepresented since the death and a victim of domestic violence.
Pembroke Pines Police haven't officially named Thompson as a suspect or person of interest, but after she spoke to NBC 6 Monday; they now want to speak to her.
Officer Patrick’s body was found Friday inside his Pembroke Pines home last Friday. Police found the body after he didn’t show up for his Miami Police patrol job for several days. Patrick was an army reservist who served in Afghanistan and was in the police department’s honor guard.
According to Thompson, who spoke with her attorney in the room, the shooting came after a volatile situation got out of control.
Thompson, who is a public service aide with the City of Miami, said she was living with Patrick in the Pembroke Pines home. Thompson said that she was the victim of Patrick’s abuse for the last two years and that on the morning of the shooting, he terrorized her and pulled a weapon on her.
“He was fighting me, hitting me, grabbing me, scratched me and he grabbed my mouth,” Thompson said. “And I kept holding on to the gun because at that time, I probably could have got shot if he was already pointing it at me.”
Thompson showed NBC 6’s Willard Shepherd marks under her chin, bruising on her eye, and bruises on her arms, all the result, she claims, of the fight with Patrick. Thompson said near the end of the fight is when the shooting happened.
“He slipped and fell and I was still backed up into a corner and we’re still tussling with the gun and at that moment; he is turning this way and it went ‘POW’ that’s it,” Thompson said. “And that was it. He called me a b****. He said, ‘You b****.’”
Thompson’s attorney, Rod Vereen, said “at that point she panics.”
“She had on a nightgown. She takes the nightgown off. There’s blood. She washed the blood off of her,” Vereen said. “She writes a note and on that note she says ‘We got in to a tussle. We tussled over the gun and he was shot.’”
“I’m still in shock,” Thompson said. “Every moment that scene just goes through my head.”
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Thompson told NBC 6 she left the home after the shooting and slept in her car. Two days later, Friday, she spoke to her mother and the mother called 911 and told police to come to the couple’s home.
Thompson said she spoke out after Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado reportedly told the Miami Herald over the weekend, “As far as I know, there was a police officer inside the house and she, the PSA, shot him.”
Vereen said that was not the case.
"I have heard reports now saying that my client was a person of interest and she was being questioned. No, she has not been questioned to this day," Vereen said.
Vereen said Thompson didn't call 911 because she was afraid of what would happen to her.
"She, by her own admission, thought about the fact that an officer is dead and if she calls 911; there's going to be an all out BOLO for her and she could possibly get killed when this is an unintentional shooting and at the end of the day he pulled the trigger."
Pembroke Pines Police have given no comment on the case, other than to say they now want to speak to Thompson.
Vereen said that when everything is sorted out, it will be clear she was the victim of domestic violence and that the shooting was the end of a pattern of brutality against Thompson.
