Death by Cop 2021-2025
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Sam Gillings
Age : 33
Gender : Male
Race : Black
Date : 04/07/2021
Location : South Miami-Dade Busway near Southwest 211th Street and U.S. 1
City : Miami
County : Miami-Dade
State : Florida
Agency : Miami-Dade Police Department
Officer(s) :Not Disclosed
Cause of Death : Vehicle
Event : Pedestrian killed by police vehicle
OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :
On 04/07/2021, Sam Gillings, 33, was struck and killed by a Miami-Dade Police Department vehicle on the South Miami-Dade Busway near Southwest 211th Street and U.S. 1. The collision occurred shortly after midnight, one day before Gillings' 34th birthday.
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Gillings was a pedestrian on the busway, a restricted roadway used by buses and emergency vehicles including police and fire vehicles. A Miami-Dade police vehicle traveling on the busway struck him.
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Gillings was killed in the collision. He was the father of two children. His family said Miami-Dade traffic-homicide investigators subsequently contacted them and told them that he had been struck by a police officer.
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According to Gillings' family, investigators told them that Gillings had been lying in the busway before he was struck and questioned family members about whether he might have been suicidal. His sisters strongly disputed that suggestion and questioned why the officer had failed to see him in the roadway before the collision.
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Two weeks after Gillings' death, his family said they still had not been given the identity of the officer driving the police vehicle. They publicly demanded additional information about the collision and questioned the official account of how Gillings came to be in the roadway.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND:
The Miami-Dade Police Department officer who struck and killed Sam Gillings was not publicly identified in the contemporary reporting located. Gillings' family specifically complained that authorities had not told them who was driving the police vehicle.
