The family of a man who was killed in a police-involved shooting back in May has filed a lawsuit against the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office and the city of Florida City, seeking transparency and access to evidence into the investigation.
Juvon Simon, 23, died after a Florida City police officer opened fire May 30 during a criminal investigation at an apartment complex in the 1400 block of NW 2nd Avenue.
Simon was struck twice and died as a result of his injuries. Police say there was a confrontation and that Simon was armed with a weapon. His family says he was not armed, and that Officer Frantz Hardy shot Simon through a door.
"Thirteen minutes on the floor until he pass away," Youseline Pierre-Simon, Juvon Simon's mother, said in a Wednesday news conference, where the family and their lawyer announced the arrest. "He pass away right in front of me."
Simon's family alleges that Florida City police is refusing to share Hardy's file or any of the details of the internal affairs criminal investigation with them. The family also alleges the video that they obtained from the state attorney's office was edited and redacted, and that minutes after the shooting, Officer Hardy came back to the crime scene with a duffle bag.
The family's lawyer, Christopher Marlowe from The Haggard Law Firm, says police potentially manipulated the crime scene and possibly planted a weapon.
In a statement to NBC 6, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office said the police department has not yet completed the investigation into the shooting.
"Once their investigation is completed, they will provide their investigative materials to the State Attorney’s Office for legal review," the statement said in part.
The state attorney's office created a website to "facilitate a better public understanding" of the officer-involved shooting investigative and legal process. Simon's case is listed in a document as a "new investigation."
"Are they treating the death of this young man, their son, with the same level of importance that it would be if this shooting did not involve a police officer?" Marlowe said.
Florida City police has not returned NBC 6's request for comment.
