Citizen Investigative Panel Denied Miami Shooting Records
MIAMI - (CBS4) - A citizen's oversight board was denied records Thursday -- two weeks after it had requested details involving a recent police-involved shooting in Miami.
DeCarlos Moore was shot and killed by Miami police on July 5, 2010. Now, the 11-member City of Miami Investigative Panel wants to review all the information related to the shooting, CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald reported.
The panel had requested the records from the police department, but Chief Miguel Exposito's office denied the request saying the case is still an open police investigation.
"Florida law provides that the requested documents shall remain confidential and exempt from disclosure during the pendency of the investigations," the police department's attorney George Wysong wrote in his response to the panel.
But the oversight panel's lawyer plans to fight that decision in court.
Charles Mays, the attorney for the panel, said Exposito has contradicted himself.
"This man [Exposito] has indicated repeatedly his investigation is concluded, and if it's not, it's been going on since July of last year," Mays was quoted as saying in the Miami Herald.
Earlier this year, the police union called the shooting justified. They said Moore rushed back to his car to retrieve something that rookie Miami Police Officer Joseph Marin thought was a gun.
Marin shot and killed Moore, but the actual reasoning and facts behind the shooting has yet to be revealed to the community.
"I'm mad and I'm mad as hell because people have died and we have not received a report," said Rev. Jerome Starling said in January.
Six other police-involved shootings in mostly black neighborhoods of Miami have created tensions among residents and police.
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