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Witness To Horrific Miami Face-Chewing So Upset He May Move
By
Jen Chung
Published May 28, 2012
Modified May 29, 2012
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 28, 2012
Modified May 29, 2012
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News that a man apparently chewed off half of the face of another man on a Miami causeway—prompting police to shoot and kill the naked attacker—has horrified the world. And one of the most distressed is witness Larry Vega, who seemed to be in shock, telling a television station, "When I looked forward, there's a guy on top of another person, eating him up like, just tearing, tearing his face apart. It's going to take some time to forget. I never thought I would see someone else eating someone. It was really, really horrific."
Vega, who was on his bicycle and one of a number of people who saw the attack, said he yelled at the man to get off his victim, but the man "kept eating the other guy away." He found a police officer, who told the attacker to stop, but, Vega described, "The guy just stood, his head up like that, with pieces of flesh in his mouth. And he growled."
The police officer fired at the attacker, who was hit but kept chewing the other man, so the cop fired more shots until the attacker was killed. It's believed that the attacker was on a "new, potent type of LSD" or a cocaine-induced psychosis. Armando Aguilar of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police said, "What’s happening is whenever we see that a person has taken all of his clothes off and has become violent, it’s indicative of this excited delirium that’s caused by [an] overdose of drugs. What’s happening is inside their body their organs are burning up alive."
Vega, who said that the attacker kept chewing and then throwing pieces of flesh to the side and was like a "zombie," had posted a comment about witnessing the ordeal on the Local 10 website, "I lived my whole life in New York and never experienced something this crazy." He also said he might move his family from South Florida.
The victim, who is believed to be homeless, remains in critical condition. About 75% of his face was torn off.
Tagged
cannibal
face chewing
horror
miami
zombie
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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