LAUDERHILL, FLA. (WSVN) - Police have released body camera video of the moment when an officer said he was forced to fire on a knife-wielding woman at an apartment complex in Lauderhill.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating Friday afternoon’s officer-involved shooting along the 4000 block of Northwest 16th Street.
The officer is heard in the footage shouting at the woman to put down the knife in her hand.
“Put it down, ma’am. Put it down now!” the officer is heard saying,
The officer discharged his firearm, and the woman, later identified as 28-year-old Monique Scott, fell on a patch of grass.
Paramedics transported her to Broward Health Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Her husband, M.D. Elius Howlader, was at work at the time of the shooting. He has questions about what went down.
“I hear that she called 911. Police came, and right here, on the hand, with the knife, and police shoot two times,” he said as he fought back tears. “How do the people kill her like that? If you could, shoot her on the foot, it’s OK. I don’t know the law.”
According to Lauderhill Police detectives, their officer responded to the neighborhood to investigate a call. The caller had given a first name and location, but the call dropped.
Authorities said the officer knocked on the front door of Scott’s apartment, but no one answered.
Investigators said the officer then saw Scott near his police unit holding a knife and would not stop walking toward him.
“I got a female with a knife in her hands,” the officer is heard saying in the bodycam video.
Howlader said his wife of three years struggled with serious mental health issues.
Lauderhill Police Lt. Antonio Gonzalez told 7News the officer was forced to shoot, and the department wanted to release the video to be transparent.
“Anytime an officer is confronted and can justifiably determine that his life or others are in imminent danger, then he’s authorized to use deadly force, and that is what occurred today,” said Gonzalez.
But her husband disagrees. He doesn’t believe it needed to end like this.
“I’m not feeling good. I lost my everything,” said Howlader.
FDLE is leading the investigation into the shooting.
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