Jan 8, 2009 5:36 pm US/Eastern
Man Wanted For Robbery Shot In Plantation
PLANTATION (CBS4) ―
One man is dead, a police officer injured after an early morning shooting in the parking lot of a Plantation strip mall.
The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot of the Jacaranda Plaza, located in 18 hundred block of North University Drive.
"We received a tip that a man wanted for armed robbery was parked next to a gas station, we went and it was him," said Plantation Police Detective Robert Rettig.
The first officer to arrive at the plaza spotted the subject sitting in a stolen car, a black Dodge Charger, under a grouping of trees by the Mobil station. After refusing to surrender and get out of the car, police said the officer used a Taser on the man but it had little effect.
"After the Taser was ineffective, he attempted to grab the wheel of the vehicle to keep him from steering out of the parking lot. At that point the officer was dragged across the parking lot, he couldn't release the wheel and he was dragged through the parking lot and he did sustain some injuries," said Rettig.
"He was resisting arrest, trying to move his car. They wanted him to stop and he didn't," said Eileen Simmons who saw the commotion from her office window.
Fearing for the officer's safety, arriving police officers opened fire on the fleeing car, killing the man.
'Then we heard gunshots, about 5 or 6 gunshots, boom, boom boom," said Maggie Dorfman.
"And then we heard three more shots," said Robyn Savitt who works in a laser eye center in the shopping center. "We thought they were a car backfiring, but then police swarmed the area and we locked the doors."
Plantation police have not identified the man, but did confirm that he was wanted for armed robbery, fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer and assault on a law enforcement officer. Police have not said if the man was armed.
The officer who was dragged was treated on the scene for a minor injury.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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