Relatives of Miami Police shooting victim meet chief

MIAMI (WSVN) -- The family of the latest victim of recent Miami Police-involved shootings have met with the department's chief of police Wednesday.

Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito reached out to families who have lost loved ones in several fatal police involved shootings in the last eight months. Though some have turned down his offer to meet, other have accepted.

His first meeting was with the family of 28-year-old Travis McNeil. During a Feb. 11 traffic stop, an MPD officer shot and killed McNeil. Police later determined he was unarmed. 

The deceased young man's mother, son and several other relatives arrived at Miami Police headquarters, at around 11 a.m. "I just want to know what happened to my child," Sheila McNeil told a gang of reporters, who swarmed her as she entered an elevator inside the headquarters.

"What happened? It's a guess," said Travis's cousin, Dartania McNeil, as cameras trailed her into the building. "It was a routine traffic stop resulting in him being killed. It doesn't make any sense."

Brothers of the Same Mind and a local activist group also attended the get-together, which is the first of six such face-to-face meetings the chief hopes to hold with family members of the seven male, African-American victims. On Tuesday, relatives of DeCarlos Moore, killed in July of 2010 in what would be the first in the series, declined Exposito's invitation.

Travis's mother said that while she has little of hope of getting any real answers to her question of why her unarmed son was shot, she'd like to be proven wrong. "I'm just praying ... it will make me feel a little relief, or I'll feel in some way [the Miami Police Department is] trying to make some steps forward in getting down to the truth of what actually happened that night," she said.

McNeil's relatives said they will speak to the media following the conversation. 

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