NBC News – Jermaine McBean Investigation
A Florida sheriff is denying allegations of misconduct by his officers in connection with the 2013 shooting death of a man who was carrying an unloaded air rifle.
But his office’s decision to give a bravery award to the deputy who fired the fatal shots — while the incident was still under investigation — is now being reviewed.
“There was no cover-up,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said in a statement.
Deputy Peter Peraza fatally shot Jermaine McBean, 33, on the grounds of his Oakland Park apartment complex after three people called 911 to report a man walking around with a rifle.
The incident is drawing fresh scrutiny two years later because a newly emerged photo shows McBean, 33, wearing in-ear headphones immediately after being shot — contradicting police statements.
Police documents show that Peraza insisted to a homicide detective that there was nothing in McBean’s ears that would have stopped him from hearing police orders to drop the rifle — and the detective told the family that officers at the scene “confirmed” that…
“It’s crazy,” said Schoen, who is representing the McBean family in a wrongful-death and misconduct suit against the sheriff’s office. “They know by then that they just tragically shot an unarmed guy who had an air rifle that wasn’t loaded, who was about to go into his apartment.”
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