© AFP Photo / Joe Raedle
The police department in Escambia County, Florida is under investigation after multiple officers opened fire on a 60-year-old man in his own driveway over the weekend, seemingly without explanation.
Two sheriff's deputies - Jeremiak Meeks and Matthew White - responded to a 911 call about a possible burglary at approximately 3am local time on Saturday. When they arrived, Roy Middleton was leaning into his mother's car in front of his home, looking for cigarettes.
The officers claim they called out to Middleton several times, demanding that he put up his hands before he supposedly lunged at them.
Middleton, who was unarmed except for keys and a flashlight, was shot in the leg. At least five bullets hit his mother's car and the side of her house.
"It was like a firing squad," Middleton told the
Pensacola News Journal, maintaining that he backed out of the car slowly and made his hands visible before police shot him. "Bullets were flying everywhere."
Comment: A 'flash fire'? Something may have been lost in translation, but that sounds like a made-up cause for this explosion... maybe something similar to what happened in Florida on the same day happened here also?
Explosions rock Florida gas plant, force evacuations