Broward Sheriff's Office to pay medical bills for Latino man shot by deputies

A Mexican national who was shot by a Broward Sheriff's Office deputy last month was released from the hospital last Tuesday, and officials say the man will be cared for at the department's expense. Paramedics loaded a stretcher carrying German Gomez, 22, into an ambulance about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday outside North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach. Gomez was taken to the Manor Pines Convalescent Home in Wilton Manors, where he will be treated for at least 30 days and then re-evaluated to determine what further care he might need, said David Kubiliun, his attorney. Javier Dominguez, Gomez's cousin who was with him the night Gomez was shot, also rode to the convalescent home in the ambulance. The Sheriff's Office would not say how much Gomez's treatment would cost or where the money would come from. Gomez was shot Nov. 3 by Deputy Lewis Perry outside the Whispering Isles apartment complex in Pompano Beach. Perry and his partner, Richard Mosca, had been dispatched there to investigate a report of a burglary in progress, and the officers saw Gomez and Dominguez running from the complex. Perry's attorney, Eric Schwartzreich, said the cousins matched the description of the burglars, so the deputies confronted the men. What happened next is unclear, but Perry shot Gomez in the head, critically wounding him. Kubiliun has said the cousins surrendered peacefully and the shooting was unjustified. Schwartzreich has said Gomez provoked Perry and the men disobeyed orders from Perry and Mosca to stop running toward them. Dominguez said he and Gomez, who do not understand English, were not burglarizing the apartment and they mistook the dwelling for their own, in a similar, adjacent building. [more] and [more]