Gregory Frazier
Gregory Frazier
Gregory Frazier is a 56 year old resident of Pompano Beach in Broward County, Florida. [undefined]
Personal Life
Gregory is a Pompano Beach native and attended Blanche Ely High School. He worked in landscaping. He has an adult son who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. [1]
Death
On September 9, 2016 Gregory Frazier was fatally shot by a white Broward County Sheriff's Office (BSO) deputy. He was shot in the back six times by deputies. He had a pocket knife but was sitting and eating before the shooting. [undefined]
The shooting occurred around 10 p.m during a family party that was hosted by Gregory's sister Deborah Frazier at her home in the 300 block of NW 14 St. Pompano Beach. [1]
Gregory was drunk and had a heated argument with is niece Kenisha Woodward and other family members.
Keneisha said her uncle had been drunk and was "a little rowdy with me."
He had been flipping furniture in the home, which prompted Frazier's sister, Deborah Frazier, to call police for help.
When police arrived the argument was over and Gregory, calmed down and sat in the backyard in a lawn chair and eating chicken wings in a disposable foam tray.
"He was sitting, he had calmed down," Kenisha said.
"He was eating conch salad and he just told the police don't come near him.
They weren't even here two minutes and they shot him."
Quartaze Woodard, Gregory's nephew, says three deputies showed up and told Frazier to get down on the ground.
Gregory responded, "Leave me alone."
The deputies repeated the order.
Again, Frazier asked them to leave him alone.
After, Quartaze says, the officers shot him.
The deputies handcuffed before removing the handcuffs once they realized he was unconscious.
The deputies attempted to perform CPR but it was too late.
Authorities released two separate 911 calls from two women reporting the domestic disturbance in the home.
One told a dispatcher Frazier was drunk and "broke up just about everything in the living room."
She also said he was armed with a knife.
The dispatcher asked, "Is he physical?"[1]
She told the dispatcher no one was hurt, but her daughter was locked up with a baby in a room.
While on the phone with the dispatcher, deputies arrived and the woman told them Frazier was in the backyard.
"He draw the knife on my daughter," she appears to tell law enforcement on scene.
"They say he's behind the house."
The second woman who called 911 also said Frazier was armed: "He has a knife; he tried to pull it out on me.
He was just fighting my brother," she said.
Community Reaction
"I never would have called the cops if I'd known this was going to happen," Deborah Frazier says.
"They just came in and started shooting right away."
According to family members Gregory was shot within two minutes of police arriving.
They also believed that he was not a threat.
Police however thought he was threat since he was armed with a pocketknife.
Gregory was black while all the officer were white.
And friends and family say this is why Pompano Beach in particular, and Broward County in general, needs officers who better reflect the populations they serve.
“It’s too much,” says Sarahca Peterson, a friend of the Frazier family and a community activist.
“There has to be change.
They need to face criminal charges.
If I kill someone, I’m going to jail.
They shouldn’t be out there on the streets.”
Deborah said Gregory often liked to sit on the porch with his boombox and that, "He always had something funny to say," she said.
"He was the life of the party."
Francis Honore, a family friend and local minister, said Gregory would occasionally attend his Bible study.
He had known him for about 15 years.
"Like everybody else, nobody goes through life having no problems, but when your life's taken away from you, it has to be justified," he said.
Francis and Gregory's relatives questioned why deputies had not tried to subdue Frazier in a non-lethal way and instead opted to shoot.