Homestead police shot and killed a mentally ill man. His family calls it ‘an injustice’
The family of a man shot and killed by Homestead police on Saturday morning is denouncing his death as an injustice, while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the shooting and the officers involved are on administrative leave.
“He was ill, and he didn’t have guns. It was an injustice,” the man’s partner, Karen Jam, told the Miami Herald.
Jam told the Herald that
Leandro Ledea Chong, 33, suffered from mental health problems and drug addiction. She said they started dating about a decade ago and married about six years ago. They had recently separated but remained on good terms.
Fernando Morales, a Homestead police spokesman, said Sunday that officers first visited the Ledea Chong residence — a one-story home on the Sunrise Boulevard circle east of the Ronald Reagan Turnpike — on Friday afternoon “in reference to a disturbance.”
He said officers found Ledea Chong shouting at them in the doorway on Friday. But they decided he didn’t pose a threat, so officers “disengaged and left to pursue other resources in attempting to get the subject some type of treatment,” Morales wrote in an email.
On Saturday, Homestead police officers returned to the house — this time “in reference to several shots being fired,” Morales said.
Officers saw Ledea Chong “with some type of fanny pack around his neck with his hands inside the fanny pack throwing objects from inside the residence at the officers,” Morales said. “At some point the incident escalated to where Homestead Police Officers were forced to fire their weapons.”
Morales did not say whether Ledea Chong had a gun or had fired it at the police.
“I can confirm that the subject is deceased and involved officers have been placed on Administrative Leave per policy,” he added. “The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is now the lead investigative agency for this incident.”
Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), confirmed that the state agency was investigating the shooting at the request of Homestead police.
“FDLE was contacted before 5 a.m. yesterday. Agents will be gathering evidence and conducting interviews over the next few days,” Plessinger wrote in an email Sunday.
Jam, Ledea Chong’s partner, said she and other relatives are looking forward to the final FDLE report describing what happened in the last minutes of Ledea Chong’s life. They will cross-reference that version with videos they have from security cameras, she said.
Jam and her son’s girlfriend, Luisa Delvals, created a GoFundme page
after the shooting to cover the funeral costs and to seek justice for Ledea Chong, Jam said.
In the page, they describe Ledea Chong as an “amazing stepfather, and an amazing husband.” They said he often donated money to causes close to his heart and “overall was a happy soul.”
Jam said Ledea Chong had been struggling with his diseases for some time and had previously been arrested. She said officers had confiscated his guns.
Jam said Ledea Chong’s mother, Katia Chong, had been given a “rescue” number and told to call for help in case Ledea Chong “had another episode.” When he had an “episode” this weekend, his mother called the number and asked that her son be taken to a rehabilitation facility.
Arriving officers surrounded the house and pointed guns at Ledea Chong, who was standing by the door with a fanny pack containing with his keys, a rehab brochure and a screw driver, the GoFundMe page reads.
The GoFundMe page goes on to say officers “shot him outside of his house as he ran inside of fear to the bathroom to grab something to help the bleeding he ran to his room dragging his body and running and they shot him to death in his room leaving him deceased.”
It also says that relatives and loved ones of Ledea Chong have video of his home showing tracks of blood on the floor and the bullets that show he “was fighting for his life” and how he bled out.