HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Katia Chong was grieving her son on Sunday. She said her son suffered from mental health issues and she was trying to get him to a clinic before police officers shot him dead on Saturday.
A video Homestead Social shared with Local 10 News shows her son standing at the front door while police officers drew their guns and stood behind their patrol cars at the Villas of Sunrise community.
Capt. Fernando Morales, a spokesman for the Homestead Police Department, said on Sunday that there were two standoffs this week involving Leandro Chong at the house where he died on Saturday.
The witness’s video shows the standoff on Friday, police said. Police officers allowed Chong to return inside the house and the standoff ended without incident, according to Morales.
On Saturday morning, a neighbor’s surveillance camera captured the sound of three shots fired at about 2:30 a.m. Police officers responded to the same house to investigate a shooting report.
During the second standoff, Chong stood at the front door again, threw objects at them, and had his hands inside a fanny pack, police said.
On a GoFundMe page, relatives claim Chong is known as Leandro Francisco Ledea Chong and described him as “an amazing stepfather and an amazing husband” who “suffered from a mental health disorder.”
They also claim that all Chong had in his fanny pack were his keys, a rehab brochure, and a screwdriver. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was investigating the police shooting.
The police officers who were involved in the fatal shooting were on administrative leave pending the state agency’s investigation.
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