A black man who was shot dead by police officers called to a domestic altercation at his Florida home was “executed” as he sat eating chicken wings in his backyard, say his relatives, reports The Guardian. Deputies from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office shot Gregory Frazier, 55, multiple times outside the house in Pompano Beach on Friday night after a 911 call from his sister, who said he was threatening her and her daughter with a knife and “breaking up the house” after a day of drinking.
Deborah Frazier warned the dispatcher that her brother was wielding a Swiss army-style pocket knife. Relatives insist Gregory Frazier he had regained his composure by the time the two officers arrived and was sitting calmly in the backyard eating chicken and fries when they approached him. Quartaze Woodard, Frazier’s nephew, told the Broward New Times that the officers opened fire after his uncle twice refused an order to lie on the ground. Deborah Frazier said, “I would never have called the cops if I’d known this would happen. They just came in and started shooting right away,” she said. Scott Israel, the Broward County sheriff, said yesterday that he had asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Frazier’s death, along with another deputy-involved shooting in Pompano Beach earlier in the day that saw a motorist and traffic officer taken to hospital.