Rudy Eugene's Mother: 'My Son was No Zombie'
The mother of the man who chewed off the face of another man insists that her son is not a "zombie" as some media outlets have been describing him insisting that current reports have her son all wrong.
Rudy Eugene, 31, was shot and killed after officers responded to a call last Saturday of a man attacking another near a Florida freeway exit.
When police arrived Eugene was eating the face off his victim and was subsequently shot and killed after officers repeatedly asked the man to stop.
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The mother of the assailant was identified by the Miami Herald as Ruth Charles and she spoke fondly of her late son. She also criticized police for failing to subdue her son without the use of deadly force.
"Everybody says that he was a zombie, but I know he's not a zombie; he's my son," Charles told the Miami Herald.
"I feel devastated. That was not him who was seen on TV doing that. He was a nice kid. He was a good kid. He gave me a nice card on Mother's Day,"
She added: "I never had any problems with him. The police don't have to shoot him. They could have Tased him."
Other people who knew Eugene have also come forward.
"He was a nice, outgoing, ready-to-help-anybody kind of guy," Cassandra Metayer, a friend of Eugene's, told WFOR. “
"Someone in their right mind doesn't do that. This is not the act of a normal person. It has to be someone under the influence," she added
Sgt. Javier Ortiz, vice president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, said that authorities would not know if drugs were a factor in the attack until toxicology tests are completed in four to six weeks.
Ortiz also explained that there has been an increase in incidents involving drug related crimes in the area.
