Related article: K-9 shot by Fla. man fleeing police
By David Ovalle
The Miami Herald
MIAMI — Oozi, a Broward Sheriff’s Office police dog killed in a confrontation with a Lauderhill man outside a Miami Beach hospital, was felled by police bullets.
No gun was found in Delvin Lewis’ car, where he was shot after leading police on a high-speed chase that spanned two counties, according to a Miami-Dade arrest report released Friday.
As he violently fought off Oozi while inside his car outside Mount Sinai Medial Center in Miami Beach on Thursday morning, Lewis made ''a reaching motion toward the floorboard, as if attempting to retrieve a handgun,’' a police report said.
The officers fired, hitting him and the 7 ½-year-old Belgian Malinois.
Four bullets were removed from Oozi’s body and Miami-Dade’s crime lab will determine from which police guns they came. Several Broward deputies and one Miami-Dade officer discharged their weapons.
Lewis, 27, was wounded but survived.
BSO, in a preliminary news release sent about 2:30 a.m. Thursday, suggested the suspect shot and killed the police dog.
A later news release did not say Lewis fired a gun, only that the Belgian Malinois ``entered the line of fire and was fatally wounded.’'
The incident is being investigated by Miami-Dade’s homicide unit. As in all police shootings, the case will eventually be reviewed by prosecutors.
BSO declined to comment, referring questions to Miami-Dade police. Lewis faces charges related to the dog’s death because his violent dash from the law led to Oozi’s death.
Police say they believed Lewis -- a felon previously convicted of battering a law enforcement officer -- might be armed.
Earlier in Oakland Park, Lewis slammed ex-girlfriend Michelle Taylor into a wall and was seen with a ''firearm inside the waistband of his jeans,’' according to a police report.
Taylor squeezed off several rounds at him but missed as he jumped into his car and drove off.
Deputies chased his car down Interstate 95, then east on the Julie Tuttle Causeway into Miami Beach.
A Miami-Dade arrest report, by Detective Thomas Romagni, fills in details on how the final moments of the shooting unfolded:
Around 4100 Alton Rd,. police managed to stop the car by a ``police maneuver designed to safely stop fleeing vehicles.’'
But Lewis reversed at high speed, ``almost hitting the officers who were behind the vehicle.’'
He kept driving, into the Mount Sinai Medical Center parking lot, over a curb and into a service road that leads to a dead end and then turns into a walkway.
Lewis accelerated, but stopped when the car became wedged between a building and a walkway support beam. Deputies and officers from Miami-Dade and Miami Beach jumped out, ordering him from the car.
Oozi was let loose ''into the vehicle to assist in extricating the defendant,’' according to the report.
Lewis began a violent scrap with Oozi. That’s when officers said they saw Lewis reaching for what they believed was a gun.
The officers, ''fearing for their lives, discharged their duty weapons,’' Romagni’s arrest report said.
Lewis was hit three times, and later rushed to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Oozi ''sustained multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene in the line of duty,’' the report said.
At Jackson Memorial’s jail ward, Lewis was charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, resisting arrest with violence and with being principal to killing a police dog. No weapon was seized from Lewis’ car, according the report.
Oozi, whose handler was Deputy Gerald Wengert, will be honored Wednesday at a police memorial at Cooper City High School.
Copyright 2008 The Miami Herald