BSO Holds Community Forum After Deadly Deputy-Involved Shooting
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POMPANO BEACH (CBSMiami) – Hundreds of people gathered at a Pompano Beach church Monday night demanding answers after Broward Sheriff's Office deputies shot and a killed a knife-wielding man late Friday night.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel took questions and tried to give perspective about what his deputies found when they were called to that domestic disturbance late last Friday. He said Gregory Frazier was threatening family members with a knife.
"Our deputies responded to 911 calls from frantic people that depicted a very violent encounter," Israel told the audience at Bethel A.M.E. church.
BSO released more of those 911 calls on Monday.
"He came at me with a knife," a man told a 911 dispatcher about Frazier.
"He was in the backyard drunk," another man said. "He had a knife and they shot him."
Attorney Benjamin Crump is working with the Frazier family and he implored the audience to demand accountability from investigators.
"It just seems like we get killed and it's on the house and nobody's held accountable," Crump said.
The Fraziers admit they called 911 because they felt Frazier was a threat to them. However, Frazier's son Xavier believes deputies could have negotiated with him rather than shooting him. He believes the situation had calmed when deputies arrived.
"In a situation where he was posing no threat to anyone at that time, the police did not help the situation," Xavier Frazier said. "They took my father."
Crump and the Fraziers see this shooting as part of a national narrative.
"I never knew my father would become part of a pattern of a horrible trend across this country to shoot first and ask questions later," Frazier said.
Crump shared a picture with CBS4 News that shows the lawn chair where he says Frazier was seated and eating when deputies arrived. He believes Frazier posed no threat to deputies. But Israel said that's not the case and that Frazier was armed with a knife.
"He was not seated," Israel said. "He was in close proximity to our deputies."
Israel said neither of the two deputies who fired were wearing a body camera. He said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate the shooting.
"If the deputies can justify what they did, then that will appear in the FDLE report," Israel said. "If they can't justify it, then they'll be headed towards an eventual prosecution."
The attorney for the Frazier family says they want to do an autopsy to study where Frazier was shot and the trajectory of the bullets to determine how far deputies were from Frazier.
