The mother of the man who was shot and killed by police in Miami when he wouldn’t stop gnawing on another man’s face is speaking out about her son, defending him against attacks that call him a “zombie.”
Witnesses have described the horrific scene as 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, naked and crazed, bit and chewed the face of 65-year-old Ronald Poppo on a sidewalk near a highway May 27. Some passersby say Eugene had pieces of flesh hanging from his mouth and was even growling before he was shot and killed by cops when he disobeyed their order to stop. Poppo is still in critical condition, fighting for his life after 75 percent of his face was disfigured.
Eugene’s mother, who asked CNN not to reveal her name, said her son was a loving, caring person, and police didn’t need to shoot him.
“He was a good kid. He gave me a nice card on Mother’s Day. Everyone says he was a zombie. He was no zombie. That was my son,” she said.
Eugene’s girlfriend also painted a very different picture from the ravenous man scene on surveillance video brutalizing Poppo before chewing off his face.
“He loved God. He always read the Bible. He would give you knowledge on the Bible. Everywhere he went his Bible went. When he left he had his Bible in his hand,” his girlfriend told WFOR. “That wasn’t him, that was his body but it wasn’t his spirit. Somebody did this to him.”
Authorities have stated they suspect Eugene was under the influence of drugs at the time of the attack, possibly bath salts, which can cause hallucinations or delusions.
