16 bullets hit Raymond Herisse, 22, who was killed sitting behind the wheel of his vehicle. Four bystanders were wounded — two men and two women, part of a large crowd gathered on May 30, 2011, for the final day of Urban Beach Week. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/2-years-after-116-police-bullets-flew-few-answers.html?ref=us  Eight Miami Beach police officers clustered near the driver’s side. Then they unleash a barrage of more than 100 bullets, a volley so startling that the hands of the person recording the scene from his cellphone shake.
It took the Miami Beach police two years to wrap up their investigation. In late May, the case was turned over to the Miami-Dade County state attorney, Katherine Fernandez-Rundle. She will decide whether the 12 officers — eight from Miami Beach and four from Hialeah who fired the initial shots — used excessive force, a process that could still take months. The officers have not yet provided statements to prosecutors, said Sgt. Bobby Hernandez, the public information officer for the Miami Beach Police Department.

The police have said that Mr. Herisse, a Boynton Beach resident, was driving recklessly for several blocks, nearly hitting several police officers and posing a danger to pedestrians. He was legally drunk, toxicology reports show. He had been arrested 13 times since 2007, once for stealing a car but mostly for drugs, traffic violations and missed court dates. Marwan E. Porter, the Herisse family lawyer, said that was irrelevant to the shooting because he had no outstanding warrants.

During the investigation, Miami Beach police officers were faulted by the victims’ lawyers and civil libertarians for their treatment of witnesses and their handling of evidence, including a gun that was found under a towel beneath the driver’s seat. It took officers three days to obtain a warrant, search the car and find the gun, which opened the department to skepticism about how it got there. Lab reports showed that Mr. Herisse did not fire a gun before the shooting.

“They have to justify 116 bullets shot into a crowd of hundreds of people. And that’s a problem. That is so reckless. They also shot four innocent people, who luckily are alive but could be dead.”

Mr. Herisse’s family say they were forced to sue to obtain information they are entitled to under the law. Meanwhile, the four bystanders who were seriously injured have not yet been classified as victims — barring them from access to a general fund for victims. They face substantial medical bills.

One victim still has a bullet lodged near his heart; doctors decided not to remove it. Another was shot in the hip and required reconstructive surgery. A third victim was shot in the arm and leg and suffered a nervous breakdown. The fourth person was shot in the arm.

In June, a Miami-Dade County judge ordered the release of some of the information — autopsy reports, photographs and the police radio chatter. But Miami Beach city attorneys failed to abide by the court order, prompting the judge to chastise them, calling their behavior “darn right insultful to the court,”

Last month, the Department of Justice found that several Miami Police Department shootings were unjustified.

One Miami Beach Police Department officer had been fired for taking a woman on a joy ride on his all-terrain vehicle while drunk and running over two tourists on the beach. Two others were fired for arresting and abusing a gay man. And one officer shot two people in four days, resigned and was later convicted of running a marijuana-growing operation.
Bradley Winston, a lawyer whose client, Sarah Garcia, was shot twice, sees it differently.

“The police response was so disproportionate,” he said. “It’s the dictionary definition of overkill.”