Rachel Gilmer, Executive Director of Dream Defenders and the Healing & Justice Center, speaks at a press conference denouncing the police shooting of Liberty City resident Donald Armstrong on Thursday, March 14, 2024.
The Dream Defenders have launched a petition urging the City of Miami to drop the charges against Liberty City resident Donald Armstrong as well as invest in a non-law enforcement approach to public safety.
Armstrong, 47, was tased and shot multiple times by police officers last month while he was having a mental health crisis. Now he is facing two charges including aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer without violence.
Denise Armstrong, 68, told Hy-Lo News she was hospitalized for stress for about “a week or two” after witnessing police shoot her son on March 7. “I just went on out. I couldn’t believe it,” said Ms. Denise, who is also battling an illness. “I wanted to get help for my child, and I kept telling them that he didn’t have a gun or anything. … Next thing I know, they started shooting and I saw blood and holes in my son.”
Ms. Denise said she tried encouraging her son as he lay on the ground fighting for his life. “He was holding on to one of the police [officer’s] legs and the officer moved his leg away. His eyes were moving back and forth and I said, ‘Donald, you’re gonna be alright baby; you’re strong.’”
According to another relative, Armstrong has been transferred from the intensive care unit into a regular hospital room. However, due to him being placed under arrest, Ms. Denise said she hasn’t seen him since he was taken to Jackson Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.
“It’s so much happening. I’ve been short of breath. … I guess they’re trying to say my son committed battery on the police but how could he do that? I was standing right here,” Ms. Denise said.
“They won’t let me see him. They said the only time I can see him is when he goes to TGK. [Aside from that] they haven’t told me anything. … I want to see my child. I really want to see how he’s doing. I just sit outside and think about it,” she continued while choking back tears.
The petition and updates on Armstrong’s condition come roughly two weeks after the Healing & Justice Center (HJC) collective, along with other concerned citizens, held a press conference on March 14 decrying Armstrong’s shooting as an unnecessary use of force by police.
They encouraged law enforcement to call upon their Freedom House Mobile Crisis Unit – launched in 2022 to prevent violent police responses during incidents like Armstrong’s – as an alternative solution.
“Last Thursday’s shooting is proof that police officers are not trained to respond to mental health crises. Police are socialized to see every call as a potential threat. When they are called to the scene, they treat it as law enforcement officials, not as mental health experts,” Rachel Gilmer, the Executive Director of Dream Defenders and the HJC, said in a news release dated March 13.
“We started our mobile crisis unit so that when residents of Miami-Dade County are in crisis, they can call for help and receive the support they need, without having to worry if their loved ones would be killed,” Gilmer continued.
Comprised of the Circle of Brotherhood, Dade County Street Response, Dream Defenders and Touching Miami with Love, the HJC describes itself as “a community-based public safety program focused on reducing violence, improving mental health outcomes and diverting people from the criminal legal system.”
In an exclusive interview with Hy-Lo News, Gilmer doubled-down on her stance that police “are not at all equipped to deal with mental health crises.” She also referenced a 2015 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, which found individuals with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during interactions with law enforcement.
“Over the last 6 months we’ve responded to something like over 125 incidents and never once did we need to escalate to use a gun or a taser. In pretty much every situation, our team was able to de-escalate and get the person help,” Gilmer said. “I think the police’s whole way of approaching a situation like that is to see the person on the other side as a potential threat. We see people as people with needs.”
Brother Lyle Muhammad, Executive Director of the Circle of Brotherhood, echoed Gilmer’s sentiments, saying police should not be the first ones to respond to mental health crises.
“We know for sure that he (Armstrong) was not in his right mind. … We’re in talks and negotiations with the police department to look at what a non-police response to these crises could look like if properly resourced,” Muhammad told Hy-Lo.
According to Muhammad, his research while attending an institute at the University of Chicago found it will take $162 million to fund violence prevention in Miami-Dade County. It’s a number he called “spiritually connected” due to it being the same number of Black men who signed the charter to incorporate the City of Miami in 1896.
Video footage from the day of the incident shows Armstrong on the porch of his home on 58th Street and 7th Court holding what family members said was a screwdriver. Noticeably erratic, at one point Armstrong points at his chest and tells police to shoot him in the heart.
After tasing him twice, officers did shoot him – repeatedly. According to Gilmer, one of Armstrong’s cousins told her he began “falling forward” after they tased him the second time.
“When you’re being tased, your body may react by falling forward and the police saw someone falling forward as a potential threat,” Gilmer said before reiterating her belief that police are not properly equipped to deal with mental health calls.
“Through our lens point, this is just somebody having a crisis in need of help and I think the charges just exacerbate the fact that the police don’t see people in crises as people who need help, but see them as potential threat,” Gilmer said.
Ms. Denise said her pastor and longtime leader of Liberty City’s Friendship Baptist Church, Rev. Gaston Smith, is the family’s spokesperson and the only one who has seen Armstrong since he was shot.
When Hy-Lo attempted to interview Smith, he was unavailable to speak, but he has gone on record in support of the family.
“I think it’s a very unfortunate situation. I think there are serious concerns. Of course the community is appalled,” Smith told CBS. “He has had some mental concerns and the mother was a little bit concerned about that, but she was asking for help. She was reaching out for help. She was not asking for her son to be shot multiple times.”
City of Miami Police Chief Manuel A. Morales released a statement about the incident and said there were “two parallel investigations” being done by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Miami Police Department. He pledged “transparency and accountability” throughout the process.
“Communication is paramount to our communities, and we want to ensure all information we disseminate is accurate. The community needs to hear directly from me about the situation,” Morales said. “We are already in the process of our internal investigation regarding all actions taken. I pledge to ensure that our department does better in addressing calls involving mental and behavioral issues. I am asking all of us to pray for Mr. Armstrong and his family during this difficult time.”
Gilmer wants to see the city move beyond thoughts and prayers into action. In addition to her fellow HJC organizations, she said she’s been in talks with the NAACP, Black Men Build, the Black Collective and others. She believes the public will support the petition in droves.
“We never should have been in this position in the first place, where a man with a gun was the solution to somebody in need of help,” Gilmer said. “I don’t think a lot of people even know that this man has also been charged. Not only has he been shot and thank goodness survived; now they have to deal with a legal situation around charges. … I think the second people know a lot of them are going to sign the petition.”
Gilmer said the HJC also has a trauma recovery unit that works to help the community heal after experiencing and witnessing ordeals like Armstrong’s shooting.
“After an incident like this we do a wellness check. The police will come to the neighborhood and extract information for an investigation, but nobody’s going to the neighborhood and asking people, ‘Are you okay” You witnessed something really traumatic. Do you need anything?’”
This is a developing story.
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