NBC 6’s Willard Shepard exclusively obtained the interrogation video of a teen accused of shooting two police officers in Liberty City.
A teen accused of wounding two undercover Miami-Dade detectives in what authorities called an "ambush-style attack" in March discussed his troubled background with detectives in a police interview obtained exclusively by NBC 6.
Damian Antwan Thompson, 19, is charged with two counts of attempted murder in the March 27 shooting that left detectives Charles Woods and Terrance White hospitalized. He was captured a day later after a massive manhunt.
"What is your nickname man? What do they call you in the street?" a detective asks Thompson in the interview video.
"My family call me Damo," Thompson responds.
Police say Thompson open fired on the officers as they sat in a car near Northwest 62nd Street and 20th Avenue. Their car was left riddled with bullets.
"I want you to talk to me man to man. Be honest with me. You know you’re here for a reason," the detective tells Thompson in the video.
Woods and White were rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in a pickup truck. White was hit in the arm, while Woods was shot in the leg.
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And in the interview, police explored what led Thompson here, starting with dropping out of middle school.
"What’s the highest level you completed in school? Grade level?" the detective asks.
"Well, I dropped out of 8th grade, but I went to Job Corps and got my credits up to, two more credits left for a high school diploma," Thompson replies.
"So you dropped out of school in the 8th grade?" the detective says. "Why?"
"Because I got expelled from school," Thompson says.
"Got a little temper huh?" the detective asks.
"No, I got caught stealing out of the teacher's pocketbook," Thompson replies.
Thompson apparently had trouble at school and away from it. At 15, he was already a parent. The child is now three. Thompson rapped about his struggles in YouTube videos.
"I am from a lost place where don't nobody love you. Where you can't trust nobody because ain't nobody for you," he says in one song. "I am tired of seeing my black people struggle. When you are from the hood like me you get it off the muscle."
The detective asked if involvement in a gang motivated Thompson to allegedly fire at police.
"Who you hang around? You got any tats on you?" the detective asks.
"No sir," Thompson says.
"You don’t claim anybody?" the detective presses.
"What you mean?" Thompson replies.
"Who you run with over there?" the detective asks again.
"Who I run with? I don’t run with nobody over there," Thompson replies.
Thompson admitted to knowing Detective White, who had arrested him earlier in 2017. As to what police say was Thompson's decision to start shooting, the Florida Constitution prohibits anyone, at this point, from hearing what he may have said about that.
Thompson's mother told NBC 6 he's no angel but she doesn't think he would go this far. Miami-Dade Police said that both of the officers are doing well and improving.
Thompson has entered a not guilty plea and the charges against him are working their way through the court.
