An armed man who was shooting into a car in a Publix parking lot in Homestead was shot and killed by police during a confrontation Saturday night, officials said.
A video recorded by a viewer and shared with NBC 6 showed the incident unfold outside the Publix at 2950 Northeast 8th Street.
Miami-Dade Police officials said a security guard for the shopping center was alerted to a man looking into a car. When the security guard confronted the man, the man produced a firearm and discharged it several times into an unoccupied vehicle, police said.
Cellphone video showed the man standing next to the driver's side of the vehicle and firing a handgun into it.
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"I heard a lot of shouting, a lot of confusion," said Glen, the viewer who shot the video. "Then I take a look to my left and there's a man holding a gun right by his car and started shooting inside of his car."
The video also showed the moment an off-duty Miami-Dade police officer who was in the parking lot, was alerted by the gunshots and got out of his car to investigate.
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The off-duty officer was identified as Francisco Moreno, a 30-year veteran who works in the Kendall district.
"I knew it was very very intense and I had to be protected so I was behind my car the entire time," Glen said.
As Moreno approached the scene, a City of Homestead police officer arrived and began to give the man loud verbal commands to drop the firearm, officials said.
"Stop, stop, stop, I'm going home," the man is heard yelling, as one of the officers yells at him to drop the weapon.
"You can't hit me from here," the man continued. "No one's trying to hurt anybody.”
After the armed man refused to drop the gun, he was shot by Moreno, officials said.
"Both officers gave multiple verbal commands to this individual to put the firearm down, to place the firearm on the ground, the individual refused and then that's when you hear that the shots, our officer discharged his firearm, striking the subject," Miami-Dade Police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta said.
The man was then airlifted to Jackson South Trauma Center where he was pronounced dead. He was later identified as 44-year-old Alexander Arrington.
No other injuries were reported. Police are still investigating what led to the incident.
"We don't know if he was arguing with anybody. We still don't know why he discharged that firearm, when he was there, we don't know if there was another patron that he was arguing with, we don't know the beginning portion of that," Zabaleta said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the police shooting, which is standard procedure.
