South Florida Injury Attorney Blog

Family and friends say Miami Beach police officers mistook the identity of a man fatally shot early Sunday morning, the Miami Herald reported June 16. Husien Shehada, a 29-year-old limo driver from Woodbridge, Virginia, was shot by police in a confrontation outside a club around 4 a.m. on June 14. His brother, engineer Samer Shehada, 31, was arrested in the incident for battery.

The police were in the area responding to a call about an armed man, around the same time that the brothers and their girlfriends left their hotel. They stopped the younger Shehada, and a confrontation ensued. The Herald said it wasn’t clear what happened; the police department declined to comment. A cousin to the brothers, Najwa Ghannam, told the Herald that Husien Shehada was unarmed. Police did say that Samer Shehada was charged with battery for allegedly beating a woman and kicking her in the head. His girlfriend, Karlia Karpel, denied this, saying she was with him throughout Saturday night and Sunday had no bruises. The family’s defense attorney said police asked each individual involved whether they spoke Arabic.

I hope that the implication that racism played a part in this incident turns out to be false, although it’s impossible to know right now. But if family members are right that Husien Shehada was unarmed, the police will have to present a compelling argument to show that he was a serious enough threat to justify lethal force. Officers do a dangerous job and have the right to shoot when they believe their lives are in danger -- but it’s hard to imagine how an ordinary unarmed man might have posed such a threat. If this death is a result of police misconduct, the family has every right to file a Miami-Dade wrongful death lawsuit against the police.

Cohn, Smith & Cohn has handled many wrongful death cases over more than 25 years of practice, so we know all too well that a South Florida wrongful death lawsuit can’t bring back the person who was lost. However, family members frequently encounter serious financial problems after an unexpected death caused by someone else’s actions. Families dealing with fatal injuries can face very high medical bills, funeral costs and other expenses related to the accident. If the victim was a breadwinner, they also lose an income immediately, and permanently. And for many families, a wrongful death claim is a way to bring wrongdoers to justice and publicly expose the wrongdoing that led to their loss.

If you’ve lost a loved one to another person’s careless or illegal actions and you’re considering a legal case, Cohn, Smith & Cohn can help. To contact our Aventura wrongful death attorneys for a free consultation, please send us an email or call our main office at (954) 431-8100.