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Vigil Held For Man Shot By Police In Overtown

MIAMI (CBS4) -
Miami police are investigating one of their own after an officer shot and killed a man in Overtown just a couple hours into the New Year.

Family members said Lynn Weatherspoon, 27, was walking down the street on his way back from the store when he was shot by officers in unmarked black SUVs.

Thurman Johnson, Weatherspoon's God brother was with him at the time.

"He ran and panicked. He was drunk," Johnson said. "When he ran that's when they shot him out the window cold-blooded. They didn't even say 'freeze', they didn't say none of that."

Miami's Police Chief Miguel Exposito said officers responded to a call of shots fired in the area of NW 1st Place and 15th Street shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday.

"When the officers arrived on the scene they spotted an individual standing with a handgun in his hand," said Police Chief Exposito. "There was some type of confrontation and then the individual was shot and killed by police."

Johnson said Weatherspoon did not have a gun in his hand. And other family members who watched the incident unfold contend the incident does not make sense.

"How can they shoot him all in the back if he pulled out a gun on y'all," Weatherspoon's sister, Cece Weatherspoon, said. "Y'all shot him in the back. you didn't get no front shot."

The shooting brought sister-in-law Claudette Lemmons' birthday party to a sobering hault. She said she hasn't slept since.

"I've been crying all day," Lemmons said.

Weatherspoon and others had thrown her a surprise party. A final memory that she recalled in tears.

"He kept saying mama, I got something for you," she said. "I love you and he kissed me on the jaw and that's the last thing he did, 'cause he danced with my daughter in the kitchen, that's the last thing."

Lemmons and others placed candles, stuffed animals and written prayers at the site where Weatherspoon was shot to death.

CBS4 News has learned that Weatherspoon had a lengthy rap sheet which included multiple drug and battery charges. His family members maintain he wasn't doing anything wrong when police killed him.

Weatherspoon's shooting come on the heels of another police-involved shooting in July when Miami police shot DeCarlos Moore to death. A police union spokesman said officers mistakenly thought Moore's sunglasses were a gun when he pulled them out of his car.

That case is now in the hands of the State's Attorney's office.

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