Fla. police fatally shoot Woodbridge man

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By Jessica Gresko ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. | Swim trunks for the beach, T-shirts for the heat and a pair of new, black Prada loafers for going out. That's what Woodbridge, Va., limousine driver Husien Shehada packed for his five-day vacation to Miami. He was like any 29-year-old tourist vacationing with his girlfriend, his brother said.

But Mr. Shehada didn't go home with a sunburn or a suitcase full of flamingo knickknacks. The day before his flight back, at 4:30 a.m. on June 14, police fatally shot him on a palm tree-lined street in Miami Beach as he walked with his brother two blocks from the ocean. Mr. Shehada's brother Samer said he was unarmed.

In the hours after the shooting, Samer Shehada said, all the members of their vacation party were questioned - including the brothers' girlfriends. The women were asked if he spoke Arabic.

"I don't know why they would even ask that question," said Samer Shehada, 31.

The brothers are of Palestinian descent.

Washington's American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called the question "troubling" and wants to know if Husien Shehada's background had anything to do with the shooting. The Miami Beach police and State Attorney's Office are investigating and said they cannot release information until they are finished.

Police cleared the officer involved, Adam Tavss, to return to duty. The day he returned, June 18, he and other officers were involved in a second shooting death. This time they were responding to a report of an armed carjacking of a taxi. Police said Lawrence McCoy drove the taxi the wrong way on a bridge leading from Miami Beach and exchanged gunfire with them before being shot.

Police have not said if Officer Tavss fired the fatal shot in that incident. He and another officer were temporarily put on paid administrative leave for firing their weapons. Both are back at work at desk jobs, said police spokesman Detective Juan Sanchez.

Before this month's deaths, the last time police fatally shot anyone in Miami Beach was in 2003, the detective said. That man was armed with a knife.

Mr. Shehada's family members and a lawyer they hired said Husien Shehada was never a threat to police. He wasn't a violent man, they said. He had spent a short time in jail for marijuana possession in 2003 and had a few other minor brushes with the law. He lived with his mother in Woodbridge, taking care of the bills and helping her with a condition that sometimes leaves her short of breath.