FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ A man wanted in an attempted murder investigation was fired upon by officers from multiple law enforcement offices Friday and died on the grounds of a Broward County mosque.
A police task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service encountered the man parked in a lot for the Masjid Al-Iman mosque near Fort Lauderdale.
"We do not believe that the mosque was involved in any way, nor the subject with the mosque, but those are things we need to look into and it's going to take some time, folks," Gadyaces Serralta, U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Florida, said during a news conference Friday afternoon.
The tip that the man was in South Florida came from authorities in Osceola County, which is south of Orlando.
The suspect got out of his car holding a weapon, and officers from the Fort Lauderdale and Plantation police departments as well as a deputy marshal all fired their weapons, Serralta said.
Serralta withheld information about the number of bullets fired, how many times the man was struck by gunfire or which officer may have fired the lethal shots. The dead man's name also was not released.
Wilfredo Ruiz, a spokesman for the Florida chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the man who was killed was "not somebody known to the mosque congregants who I have spoken to."
With leaders of law enforcement agencies flanking him _ Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione; Broward Sheriff's Undersheriff Col. Sean Zukowsky and Plantation Police Chief Howard Harrison _ Serralta said the task force received information Thursday about the "attempted murder suspect" who the U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force was "zeroing in on."
"He exited the vehicle, brandishing a firearm," Serralta said. "The task force members opened fire and the subject unfortunately is deceased."
All law enforcement officers were safe after the shooting, Serralta said. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate it.
Though Serralta initially said investigators believe only Plantation and Fort Lauderdale officers and the deputy marshal are believed to have fired their weapons, "Either way, this is all under investigation.
"I don't have much more detail I can give you at this time," Serralta said. "We owe it to the officers, to the deceased and to the community to make sure that we do a thorough investigation before we give out any more details. We want to make sure that we are accurate."
The shooting drew a large number of police officers to the Franklin Park neighborhood. Patrol cars blocked off streets near the mosque, and traffic and pedestrians could not pass by. A corner of a parking lot at the mosque was blocked off with police tape.
Crime scene investigation trucks from both the Broward Sheriff's Office and Fort Lauderdale police arrived about 1 p.m.
The residential neighborhood is south of West Sunrise Boulevard and just west of Interstate 95.
