Davie Police Respond To Family's Critical Comments On CVS Shooting Investigation

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FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - One day after a family publicly criticized the Davie police department for their handling of a deadly shooting inside a CVS, the police have responded.

The shooting happened last week when a Craiglist transaction went wrong.

Andre Smith and a friend were selling an iPhone to Matthew Barry, who responded to Andre's Craigslist ad.

Last week, Davie Police Major Dale Engle talked about a possible motive.

"From the interviews that we received I think Barry felt that they were going to try to get the phone back after there was an exchange of money for the phone, that these two individuals would flee with both the money and the phone but that is purely speculation on my part," said Engle.

Since then, Smith's mother has demanded to see the surveillance tape from inside the store that shows the shooting. So far police have not complied.

"He is my baby. I think I deserve that, to find out what angered this person that they killed my child. He was unarmed. I need to see it. I need to know," said Andrea Smith.

The police say the shooting happened only about a week ago and they still have a very active investigation.

"We will not release evidence. We are sensitive to the families involved in this tragedy and at the appropriate time we will share all the evidence with them before the public," said Engle.

The family has hired attorneys Jose Baez and Jasmine Rand.

"The Davie Police Department who is at this time illegally withholding the video of this incident to the family of Andre Smith," said Baez.

That's not true though, says Davie's legal counsel.

"I don't know what law school they went to, if they're Florida lawyers or not," said Davie PD Legal Counsel Greg Gossman. "Because the Florida Public Records Law is 119, the victim's right law is 960.  Neither of those gives the victims' next of kin an absolute right to see anything prior to the investigation being done."

Baez and Rand are calling the police investigation "unprofessional" and "befuddling."

Detectives say Matthew Barry shot Smith, possibly because he was worried he was about to be robbed.  The family wants him arrested.

"We have a message for Dale Engle. Dale Engle we don't want your speculation, we don't want your guesses, we want you to do the job, we don't want your bias, what we want is the truth," said Rand said at a news conference on Wednesday.

"We're going to do a thorough job," replied Engle on Thursday. "We're going to do our job and we're going to take every bit of evidence we can compile and that's what's going to be in our case. We're only going to present the facts to the State Attorney."

Barry's attorney said he believes both the police investigation and surveillance video will show Barry did nothing wrong.

"I'm confident after doing this for 30 years," said Ken Padowitz, "that the evidence is going to show that my client violated no laws, that he was defending himself and that this case will be cleared and there won't be an arrest in this case."

In:
• Shooting
• Davie Police