Dramatic new police body camera footage shows officers responding to a triple shooting in North Miami in November that claimed the lives of a father and his two adult sons and has a man facing murder charges.
The footage released Tuesday shows the massive police and fire rescue response to the Nov. 13 shooting an apartment complex on Northeast 5th Avenue near 123rd Street.
Police said 33-year-old Pierce Nelson Hoempler was involved in a physical altercation with his neighbor, Hector Rivera, before the two ended up on the ground on the lawn of the apartment complex.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
Hoempler was on top of Rivera, pinning him to the ground, when Rivera's two sons, Jeremy Rivera and Frank Rivera, came to their father's aid, an arrest report said.
That's when Hoempler pulled a semi-automatic pistol out of his waistband and shot all three, the report said.
One of the body camera videos shows an officer arriving at the scene as Hoempler is already in custody, sitting on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Local
"You pat him down?" the officer asks another officer.
"Yeah, gun is inside," the other officer responds.
The officer then turns her attention to Hoempler, asking him if he's hurt.
"No ma'am," Hoempler responds. "I tried to avoid it as much as I could…and then his sons showed up."
Hoempler said Hector Rivera, who he said was a maintenance man, had started beating on the door and the two got into an argument before Rivera's sons jumped in.
"His kids pulled up, started rushing me," Hoempler said. "They started swinging and I had no choice."
The video then shows the officer walking to the back of the complex where an officer can be seen giving chest compressions to one of the shooting victims.
Another victim is seen lying on the ground in a pool of blood as the officer with him said he was shot multiple times and had no pulse.
The third victim is seen lying on the grass nearby being loaded onto a gurney.
Other videos show officers closing off the scene with yellow police tape as multiple Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews respond.
Hector and Jeremy Rivera were pronounced dead at the scene, and Frank Rivera was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center where he died from his injuries.
Hoempler was later booked into jail on three second-degree murder charges. He remains held without bond.
