Donald Armstrong doesn’t remember what was going through his mind the day police officers shot him six times outside of his Model City home. He was high on Molly and holding what he saw as a Harry Potter wand, so he didn’t understand why they were treating him like he was dangerous.
At one point during the altercation, Armstrong would yell at the Miami police officers to shoot him in the heart, lifting his shirt. Standing in the same spot close to a year later, he lifted his shirt again and showed where one of the bullets had, in fact, pierced his chest. On his stomach, he wore a colostomy bag.
It was Armstrong’s own mother who had called the police that day, seeking help.
“I guess she seen me and said, ‘This is not Donald,’” Armstrong explained. “‘It’s not my son. This is my son, but it’s not my son.’”
His case is one of at least 13 police shootings to take place in South Florida in 2024. Only two people aside from Armstrong survived. Four fatal shootings unfolded in South Florida in just two weeks in December. The recent string of shootings began with the Dec. 6 shooting of a woman holding a knife in Lauderhill, and lasted to the shooting of a homeless man in Boca Raton on Dec. 18.
There’s been at least one deadly shooting so far in 2025. Fort Lauderdale police officers shot and killed a man throwing “incendiary devices” early Thursday morning after responding to a call about a fire, officials say.
Many of those shot in South Florida in 2024 appeared to be in the grips of a psychiatric episode, armed with a weapon or the appearance of one, acting erratically and not following orders, according to body-worn camera footage and 911 calls of the incidents released by various police departments throughout 2024. In several cases, their own family members had called the police for help, only to watch their loved ones die. The circumstances surrounding the shootings often involved people dealing with mental health and drug use issues or cases of domestic violence, and sometimes a combination of the three.
“The reality is our society overall has been experiencing a higher level of emotional disturbances, a lot more depression and a lot more violence, as a result of conditions we live in and the stresses of society,” said Silvia Quintana, CEO of the Broward Behavioral Health Coalition.
The fact that multiple police shootings took place in a matter of days in December is likely because mental health, already a growing problem, deteriorates around the holidays, experts say. Some of those suffering may use alcohol or drugs to cope in lieu of treatment, making matters worse when officers arrive.
A ‘terrible dilemma’
Outside a Lauderhill apartment complex on Dec. 6, Monique Scott, 28, walked steadily toward an officer, holding a knife in her hand, body camera footage showed. The officer backed away, yelling at her to put it down, but she said nothing. Then he shot her.
Days later, on Dec. 11, Fort Lauderdale Police officers shot and killed Jalen Moore, 21.
Moore’s family repeatedly called for help because he was in the throes of a mental episode, according to 911 calls released by the police department. At first, one relative asked just for paramedics because “police might just make things … worse.”
Moore was armed with a loaded gun inside the home with his relatives, including an infant, the police department said. When officers came, he walked outside “holding his brother hostage at gunpoint,” according to Fort Lauderdale Police. They shot him several times. The police department released segments of body-worn camera video of the shooting on Tuesday.
Just days later, on Dec. 14, Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies killed Robert Drangel, who had brandished a gun at his wife and then fled. Drangel was on court-ordered house arrest after his wife reported that he had repeatedly violated an injunction for protection against stalking.
And four days after that, on Dec. 18, Boca Raton Police shot and killed Morey Clemmons. The police department has not provided details on the shooting, but his wife identified him. A warrant for Clemmons’ arrest over a probation violation had been issued for the same date. The violation stemmed from an incident in which Clemmons stole $45 worth of beer and chicken wings from a Publix in West Palm Beach, then threw a cup of juice at a police officer after the officer Tased him, according to a probable cause affidavit.
It’s difficult to tell in many cases what drives people to behave defiantly during confrontations with police. They might be on drugs, out of touch with reality or acting out of anger. Or they might be suicidal, possibly trying to commit “suicide-by-cop,” experts say, a term for when a person endangers officers in order to be shot themselves. In some cases, people have told police officers they had hostages, only for officers to discover they did not. Sometimes, they later end up taking their own lives.
“Police have a terrible dilemma,” said Kenneth Weiss, a clinical psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine who has written several papers on the suicide-by-cop phenomenon. “Which is, on the fly, how to determine who’s a real threat and who needs to be taken seriously in their threat, versus someone who’s posturing to get killed.”
The term “suicide-by-cop” is also loaded: Police departments have sometimes used it as a defense in lawsuits after shooting someone dead. If proven, it could even deprive surviving family members of life insurance money.
But when Armstrong told police officers to shoot him in March, it came from a place of defiance, he said; he hadn’t wanted to die. He wanted to be left alone.
Armstrong already had a bad relationship with law enforcement. He had been in and out of jail throughout his life, most recently sentenced to three years in 2022 for convictions of aggravated battery on a pregnant victim, aggravated assault, and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. He had grown to believe that the police are often working against him. Some of that distrust traces back to his childhood in 1980’s Miami. Once, around the age of 5, he had gone to the beach with his friends to throw firecrackers when, he recalled, a police officer came over and told them, “you little n*****s, if you was a little older I’d take you somewhere.”
That March day, Armstrong felt angry toward the officers, whose commands to “drop the weapon” made no sense to him, given that he was holding what he said was a wand.
“I’m lost and I’m angry,” he said. “I’m already confused. I’m high out of my brain, you know? I can’t tell the front from the back.”
Police officers Tased Armstrong multiple times. The last time, he said, it caused his body to freeze up and made him fall from his front steps toward the officers. The footage shows him moving forward, swinging his arms. As he fell, they shot him.
“The police have been called on me a bunch of times, and never, I never expected that to take place,” Armstrong said. “For one thing I’m not breaking the law, and my mom’s like, I ain’t did nothing. If I took a purse or something I understand … but I ain’t do nothing. Yeah I’m getting high, but who are you to tell me what to do with my body?”
Video shows man in shootout with Fort Lauderdale officers at hotel | Watch
‘Training is paramount’
Mental health and domestic-related calls are some of the hardest and most dangerous police officers can get, former law enforcement officers told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, particularly when a person is behaving violently and unpredictably and may have a weapon.
Yet the officers who end up responding to these calls often have little training: Many times, they are everyday road patrol officers suddenly placed under immense pressure, said Carl Hannold Jr., a former Fort Lauderdale police officer and trainer.
“Today’s officers, they have to be experts at everything, and the problem is they don’t get enough training,” Hannold said.
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Whether a dangerous call ends with officers shooting or successfully de-escalating often depends on the responding officer’s disposition, said Philip Sweeting, retired Boca Raton Deputy Chief of Police. And even in circumstances where an officer might be justified in shooting, “just because you can kill someone doesn’t mean you should,” Sweeting said.
“… Police officers have all kinds of personalities. Some of them are what they call cowboys and some of them are very calm and collected and they can diffuse the situation,” he said. “Frankly some other police officers make a situation more hostile, depending on the officer’s temperament, how they deal with it.”
The act of shooting or killing another person often traumatizes the police officers themselves, Hannold and other experts said.
“I’ve seen police officers who are traumatized by this,” said Weiss, the psychiatrist, who performs fitness-for-duty examinations of police officers. “Police officers who have burnout, compassion fatigue, psychic trauma from their jobs. I’ve seen officers who can’t work anymore because they’re afraid.”
Some police officers become “gun shy” because of experiences they’ve had, he added. Others become “trigger happy,” afraid if they don’t take action quickly they will die.
The proliferation of guns in the community exacerbates those fears. When someone has a gun, a police officer has limited options due to the danger of the situation. And sometimes police may believe a person has a gun even if they are holding another object, such as in the case of the March fatal shooting of a Davie man who took a shooting stance and pulled out a cellphone.
Creating the illusion of pulling a gun on officers is a common suicide-by-cop move, Weiss said.
He and former police officers emphasized the need for mental health training and supervision. Several specifically highlighted crisis intervention training, which some officers do receive, but not all. The Broward Behavioral Health Coalition, which Quintana heads, began funding CIT training through the United Way of Broward in 2002. Since then, 3,992 officers have been trained in Broward County, according to the coalition.
“Sadly enough, though we do offer training to the United Way of Broward, not all police officers are training,” Quintana said.
Former officers emphasized the need for training but said that police departments might not have enough officers or want to bear the cost.
“Training is paramount in a lot of departments,” said Charles Miller, a retired Miami Police captain of 30 years. “But training’s expensive, to take someone off road, let’s say, for a week. The department already may be short of people.”
Miller and other officers who spoke to the South Florida Sun Sentinel remembered several close calls during their time on duty. Many times, training in de-escalation and mental health came into play.
Once, a few days before Christmas, an armed man begged Hannold and other Fort Lauderdale police officers to kill him, he said. He had backup in case the man made a move to shoot, so he put his own gun to the side and put his hands up. Then he told the man that no one wanted to hurt him. The man started crying. Eventually, Hannold, who had a SWAT background, managed to get the man to show his hands.
Miller remembered several encounters with a Vietnam veteran that could have gone a different way. Officers would often find the veteran, an alcoholic with mental health problems, with a knife in his hand, which he would use to harm himself.
“He’s shaking his hand, blood’s pouring out all over,” Miller recalled. “I’m standing there a few feet away. We’d joke a little bit, say ‘Paul, it’s Friday night, you can go down to the VA, they’ll sew you up, give you counseling, a change of clothes.’”
Once, the man swung the knife at the officers, but they managed to subdue him without deadly force.
“The longer you can keep them talking, the more time elapses from the initial incident, usually they will come down from the highly agitated state to more of a communicative state,” Miller said. “These are things they teach you in mental health training.”
Family members who call 911 should try to ask for a CIT-trained officer, Quintana said. If one is not available, they can also call a mobile response team, composed of social workers instead of police officers, though that can be risky if someone is armed.
Armstrong sees his survival as a chance to start over, but it’s difficult to do. Nearly a year after the shooting, he can’t feel his left arm. He still has a bullet that protrudes from his back. He is on disability and unable to work. He also can’t watch most action movies because the sound of gunshots terrifies him. He feels like the system is rigged against him and that the people in charge want to see him fail.
“When anybody feel any type of way, they’re gonna brand me again. And everybody will say, ‘I told you! I told you!’ because I got a record,” he said. “It’s like I can’t do right.”