An award-winning Florida cop who was once named Officer of the Year shot an unarmed 17-year-old boy as he was lying on his stomach with his arms outstretched before him, posing no threat.
Rockledge Police Corporal Nicholas Galluzzi claims he was in fear for his life because the teen was a passenger in a car that tried to strike him.
But the threat, even if there was one, was over by the time Galluzzi fired his gun.
Galluzi was wearing a body camera, but police did not release the footage that took place prior to the shooting. And they blurred out the face of the teen who is accused of breaking into cars with another teen.
The second teen, a 15-year-old boy who was driving the white sedan, only to crash into a patrol car and wind up in a ditch on the side of the road, fled the scene, but was arrested later that night hiding on a porch, according to Florida Today.
The teen who was shot, whose name was not released, was listed in stable condition at a local hospital. The driver of the vehicle was identified as Anthony Pierre.
A county spokesman said the teen was shot in the chest, but the video shows the teen saying he was shot in the arm. And it does not appear likely he was shot in the chest considering he was lying on his chest.
After being struck by the bullet, the teen rolls over in agony, screaming in pain as Galluzzi yells out, “Don’t move! Don’t move! Shots fired! Put your hands out!”
“I’m shot in my arm. I can’t move my arm. I can’t move it,” the boy replies, obviously in fear he’d be shot again.
“Put your hand out!”
“I can’t! I can’t move it!” the teen responds.
“Ah!” the kid screams attempting to satisfy Galluzzi’s orders.
“I can’t!”
“Don’t move!” Cpl. Galluzzi screams again at the kid.
“Damn, old man, why you shot me?
“Get rescue,” Galluzzi begins pointing down the street.
“He went that way,” he says of his friend who had fled on foot.
The unnamed teen who was shot repeatedly asks the officer, “why’d you shoot me?”
“You kept moving your hands.”
“Oh my God!” the kid screams out in pain.
“We need rescue,” Galluzzi says, dispatching for emergency services.
Officers finally move in to assist the wounded teen, asking him if he has any guns to which he replies he does not.
It all began when Rockledge police responded to calls from residents about two teens breaking into cars when the teens fled in a white Toyota, leading Rockledge cops on a chase, in which police allege at one point that Pierre collided with their patrol cruiser before crashing the car into a ditch.
“Officers tried to stop that vehicle, that vehicle fled, actually striking one of their vehicles, one of our patrol cars, as it fled,” Donna Seyferth, a spokeswoman for Rockledge police, said.
On Saturday, Rockledge police stated a judge had granted them a search warrant allowing them to search the car, but said they did not intend on executing the warrant until Monday, which is today, claiming they were told a gun was inside the vehicle.
A special agent said Rockledge police were “working on information that there is a stolen firearm in the car” during a Friday news conference.
Pierre, who police found two hours later hiding on a porch, was charged as an adult with assault on a law enforcement officer, leaving the scene of an accident and felony grand theft.
Galluzzi, a Rockledge veteran of 17-years, was reprimanded after his patrol car collided into a Walgreens, costing his department $400, according to one disciplinary report.
In 2007, Galluzzi received the Officer of the Year Award for the Rockledge Police Department.
Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said the agency is conducting an investigation, but it can take months to conduct interviews, collect evidence and review the information to determine if Gulluzzi’s actions were criminal.
The post WATCH: Award-Winning Florida Cop Shoots Unarmed 17-Year-old Teen Lying on Stomach appeared first on PINAC News.