by Janine Stanwood
POSTED: Wednesday, August 31, 2011
UPDATED: 12:36 am EDT September 1, 2011
NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- Late Wednesday, police were still investigating an officer-involved shooting in a North Miami Beach neighborhood.Shortly after 5:30 p.m., officers responded to the area of NE 14th Ave. and 154th Street, where several people reported seeing a man wandering the street with a rifle.Marie Belizaire said she was inside her car when she spotted the man."I notice this individual with a big rifle in his hand," she said.Belizaire said the man seemed dangerous. She said several other cars slowed down on NE 14th Avenue when they saw him."All of us were swerving and ducking because we don't know what was his next move," she said.Her next move was to call 911."When the officers got there they engaged with the subject," said Sergeant Warren Hardison with North Miami Beach Police."Officers said, 'put the gun down, put the gun down,'" Belizaire recalled.Police said the man did not put the gun down. Gunfire erupted, and the man was killed, police said.As of late Wednesday, investigators would not say who shot first or if the suspect shot at all.An overhead view from Sky 10 showed what appeared to be the man's rifle in the grass behind two bullet casing markers. North Miami Beach police said the rifle was a toy.Late in the night Wednesday, family and friends of the man killed identified him as Ernest Vasalle, in his 50s. Vasalle's sister said he had autism. They believe he never would have owned a gun."He doesn't have a gun," one sister said."I couldn't even see him carrying a knife," said family friend Conroy Anderson.That's not what witnesses said they believed."It looked like we came this close to losing our life. That's the way I saw it," Belizaire said."I just hope they take their time and the truth comes out whatever it is," Anderson said.
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