No charges for Miami cop in controversial shooting of man in mental health crisis

Miami Herald

17-05-2025

A Miami police officer who shot a man multiple times while he was experiencing a mental health crisis won't face criminal charges and has been cleared by state prosecutors, records show.
In March 2024, the family of 47-year-old Donald Armstrong called Miami police officers to their home in the hope they would help him with the crisis he was undergoing. However, when police arrived, the encounter went downhill fast and ended with Officer Kassandra Mercado shooting Armstrong six times. Armstrong was injured but survived the shooting.
In a memo this week, the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office released its final findings. Prosecutors decided Mercado's actions were legally justified because Armstrong was armed with a 'sharp homemade weapon' and refused several officers' commands to drop it even after being struck with a Taser twice.
On the day of the shooting, Armstrong's mother had called police pleading for help, saying her son was suffering a mental health crisis. A standoff ensued as Armstrong stood on the porch of his mother's home in the Model City neighborhood near Liberty City, facing at least a half-dozen officers with guns drawn.
A video that captured the events showed police shot him twice with a Taser to subdue him, and he fell off the porch and toward the officers. Officer Mercado then opened fire.
Armstrong was originally charged with aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, but that charge was eventually dropped, and he instead faced a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence. The new charge was also dropped in October.
The shooting caused community uproar as activists and residents demanded that changes be made to how police officers deal with people experiencing mental health crises. At the time, Armstrong's attorney, Larry Handfield, said police must do a 'better job.'
Members of the Healing and Justice Center, a coalition of activist groups, gathered the community a few days after the shooting. They contended that Armstrong should not have been shot.
'It's really a shame that we live in a place that spends billions of dollars on more police as a solution to all of our problems,' Rachel Gilmer, the director of the HJC, said at the time.