Sybil Harris (center), the mother of
Jamar Rollins, is consoled at a community meeting at Sweet Home Missionary
Baptist Church on Tuesday. PATRICK FARRELL
For most of the past week, family
members have called the death of Jamar Rollins an “assassination,” contending
that witnesses saw the 21-year-old outside his car with his hands in the air
before undercover Miami-Dade police officer Andrew Garcia opened fire.
Police had provided few details
about the fatal face-off on the streets of Perrine, beyond saying they
found a weapon believed
to belong to Rollins. But Wednesday, they broke the silence. And law
enforcement’s version of the events of last Friday contrasted starkly with the
confrontation some residents had described took place that night.
Miami-Dade police union President
John Rivera said that after Garcia and his partner, Jesus Coto, ordered Rollins
to stop his vehicle, his passenger, Devin Smith, bailed out and fled. As Coto
gave chase, Rivera said, Garcia approached Rollins from the passenger-side
door.
The officer reported that Rollins
raised a firearm, Rivera said, leaving Garcia no choice but fire his own
weapon. Rollins managed to open the driver’s side door and fall out of the car
before dying, Rivera said. Police say they found a gun near Rollins. Smith
remains at large.
“It’s a solid shoot, man,” Rivera
said. “How many times have we told people, ‘Don’t point weapons at cops.’”
Police said Garcia and Coto were
part of a special undercover tactical squad that had been alerted to a retaliation
shooting in the Perrine area. They told investigators they ordered Rollins to
pull over the black Nissan Altima he was driving on Indigo Street near
Southwest 101st Avenue. It was just past 6:30 p.m. Friday. The officers said
Rollins was driving erratically.
The police union’s defense of the
officer’s actions came one day after a contentious public forum called by
Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss in an effort to ease tensions.
Prior to and again during the
meeting, several of Rollins’ family members claimed that he was killed despite
never threatening police — a stance bolstered by descriptions from people
nearby the night of the shooting.
At least a half dozen people told a
Miami Herald reporter and other media outlets that Rollins got out of his car
and seemed to raise his hands before Garcia fired. They said they were about
200 feet from the vehicle and facing it straight on.
But Wednesday, police said not a
single potential witness has stepped up — despite Florida Department of Law
Enforcement investigators spending days canvassing the neighborhood in search
of witnesses.
“If anyone witnessed it, come
forward to the FDLE,” Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez urged. “No one has
come forward as of yet.”
Said Rivera: “We’ve seen this in
every case dating back to Ferguson. When called in [potential witnesses] never
show up, or change their story. No one has come forward, yet, to police.”
Rollins’ aunt Trithena Rollins said
late Wednesday that the family was working on getting witnesses to cooperate
with state investigators. She told the Miami Herald that though no one in the
family saw the confrontation, they know three people who did and they’re
encouraging them to speak up.
“When you come into a neighborhood
and kill black people like that, you scare them,” Trithena Rollins said. “Some
people came forward. Just not to police. Somebody’s got to tell the story.”
State investigators have spent most
of the week canvassing the neighborhood in search of surveillance cameras,
witnesses or anyone with any information related to the shooting. Police said
there was no dashcam on the officer’s vehicle and Garcia and Coto were not
wearing body cameras.
The FDLE, as it does with all county
police-involved shootings, will investigate and pass its findings to the
Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. The officers involved will be taken off the
street for a few days and offered counseling.
State criminal history records also
show that Rollins, a former Palmetto High School student with a young child,
has a lengthy rap sheet that began in his early teens. The charges in most of
his 10 arrests between 2009 and 2016 were dropped. Rollins was arrested six
times as a juvenile, mostly for grand theft auto, with no convictions.
As an adult, the records show,
Rollins was arrested four more times. Twice he was convicted of grand theft
auto, and a burglary and assault case was dropped. He was also arrested in
Tampa three weeks before Christmas on charges of battery on a police officer.
That case is pending.
Miami-Dade police said Wednesday
that Hillsborough County also had an open warrant for Rollins’ arrest at the
time of his death. Police there believe he stole a vehicle Dec. 12.
By early this week, the noise
surrounding the shooting reached a high enough pitch that Commissioner Moss
called for a gathering at the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church in Cutler Bay.
With dozens filling its pews and demanding
answers, Rollins’ aunt Karen Harris repeated her claim: “This was not gun
violence. This was an assassination.” Trithena Rollins also said at the forum
that while it was good to have open dialogue, “we still don’t have any
answers.”
Trithena Rollins said her nephew
loved life, especially riding dirt bikes. But a “gun-toter, he never was.”
Perez, the county’s police director,
urged the community to help and promised “if it is anything other than what it
appears to be, we will take the right action on your behalf.”
Rollins’ death comes at a sensitive
time for many communities and the departments that police them. Police
shootings have sparked civil unrest in several cities around the country in
recent years, especially with the proliferation of surveillance and cellphone
cameras that don’t necessarily offer a complete picture of events, but give the
public a good idea of what took place.
Yet despite its share of shootings,
South Florida has been mostly spared the marches and rioting that have rocked
cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, New York and even Oakland.
Controversial shootings in our
region include the 2012 shooting death of North Dade teenager Trayvon
Martin near Orlando
by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, who was acquitted at trial, and the
June 2015 shooting death of Palm Beach Gardens musician Corey
Jones by police
officer Nouman Raja. Raja has been charged with attempted murder and
manslaughter and is awaiting trial.
There was also the July shooting of behavioral
therapist Charles Kinsey by
North Miami police officer Jonathan Aledda. Kinsey was shot in the leg as he
pleaded with officers not to shoot his mentally handicapped client who was
sitting on the street playing with a toy truck next to him. That case is still
being investigated.
Miami Herald Staff Carli Teproff contributed to this report.
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