6 March 6-12, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | TRIGGER MOURNING A 24-year-old man pointed a knife at his chest and begged cops to shoot him. They did. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN “D aniel was mur- dered by the Homestead Po- lice Department in his home on October 22, 2023,” reads an online obituary for Dan- iel Kempf. A separate memorial page honoring Kempf’s life describes the 24-year-old as an “intelligent, loving, and kind young man [who] touched thousands of people with his charismatic nature and sense of humor.” He loved Taco Bell, anime, playing the guitar, composing music, and freehand drawing. Kempf, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was in the throes of a mental- health crisis when Homestead Police officers arrived at his grandmother’s home on that October day in 2023. His family had sum- moned help. Instead, he wound up dead. According to a Miami-Dade State Attor- ney’s Office close-out memo, Kempf was re- ported missing after he left a suicide note weeks prior while staying at a friend’s house. He returned home on October 20 and got into a fight with his mother, Yaneitsy Rosete, and took her cell phone. She left the house to let him cool off for a few days, the close-out memo states. At 8 a.m. on Sunday, October 22, Yaneitsy Rosete and her mother, Caridad Rosete, re- turned to the home and checked on Kempf in his bedroom, where they noticed a knife on his pillow. In light of the suicide note and a more recent threat to harm himself, the women agreed they should get Kempf to a facility for an evaluation. Yaneitsy Rosete contacted the Miami-Dade Police Department detective who’d handled the missing-person investiga- tion. Homestead Police Department officers arrived at the home around 4:45 p.m. that af- ternoon. Half an hour later, Kempf was dead. Late last year, Miami prosecutors opted not to press charges against the officer who shot Kempf, finding the deadly force was jus- tified. A Homestead Police Department in- vestigation into the officer-involved shooting is ongoing. New Times obtained body-cam footage of the incident and shared it with two criminology experts who say that based on what they can see, they do not be- lieve Kempf was an overt threat to the offi- cers. If anything, they say, he was more of a threat to himself. In a pending federal wrongful-death law- suit filed against the City of Homestead in March 2024, Yaneitsy Rosete claims she be- lieved calling the police would provide the “necessary assistance” amid her son’s mental- health crisis. The Kempf shooting is one of a handful of incidents in which people in Miami-Dade County have died in custody or at the hands of police while in mental distress. Kempf’s mother and older brother, Thomas Kempf, created the Daniel Kempf Foundation to help people struggling with their mental health get the treatment they need. “Mental health shouldn’t equal a death sentence,” the family’s attorney, Robert Pelier, tells New Times. Shoot, Shoot, Shoot! Three officers involved in the shooting, Sche- lisa Gilpin-Braithwaite, Joseph Rivera, and Giovanni Nazario, were equipped with body- worn cameras. The description below is drawn from viewings of footage from the three separate body cams. Upon arriving on the scene, Nazario can be seen and heard speaking in Spanish with Kempf’s grandmother to learn about her grandson’s situation, then relaying the infor- mation to his fellow officers. “So we are gonna, I guess, head over there to try and make contact with him,” Nazario says. “She’s saying that yesterday is when he made the threats. Today he hasn’t made any threats; she just saw the knife under his pillow.” The officers decide to head toward the house to see if Kempf will come out and speak with them. They learn that Kempf has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and had previously been “Baker Acted” — an involun- tary hold for up to 72 hours for a mental- health evaluation. Before trying to make contact with Kempf, Gilpin-Braithwaite assigns herself to act as the “lethal” officer with a firearm, designat- ing Rivera as the “less lethal” officer, who will carry a Taser. They decide to attempt to get Kempf out of the home by telling him they want to check on him so they can remove his name from the missing-persons list. Nearly 30 minutes into the body cam foot- age, the group gets into position. With a Taser in his right hand, Nazario unlocks the front door, shouting, “Daniel, Daniel, Homestead Police! Hey Daniel, come here. I want to talk to you. You come out as a missing, man.” There is no response. He continues shout- ing into the home, to no avail. “Daniel, are you okay?” Nazario yells. “I need to know if you’re okay. Bang on the door for me.” Minutes later, the officers enter the home. Despite their plan for only one lethal officer, “They each had their service firearms drawn while they conducted the search of the resi- dence, for officer safety,” according to the close-out memo. They proceed room by room, looking for Kempf. Rummaging through one of the two bedrooms in the sin- gle-story home, they flip over a mattress to see if he’s hiding underneath. They eventu- ally conclude he must be hiding inside the other bedroom. “Daniel, Homestead police. Daniel,” Naz- ario says. “Hey, I just want to get you out of the system. Come on outside and talk to me, man. Daniel, come talk to me, buddy. Hey, you are not in any trouble, man. I just want to talk to you.” A fourth officer, Lieutenant Jorge Cruz, who joins the officers inside the home as they search for Kempf, issues more commands, which Kempf ignores. “Daniel, hey let me know you’re okay buddy,” Nazario persists. “Can you knock on the door for me? Daniel, I am here to help you, man. I am concerned about you, man. Every- body is concerned about you — your mom and grandma. They just want to get you help.” Still no response. As Rivera aims his taser and others point their guns, the officers open the door. Gilpin-Braithwaite instructs Kempf to come out with his hands up. Six minutes pass. Then Gilpin- Braithwaite leads the way into the bedroom, where they discover Kempf in the bath- room, standing with a towel around his waist and a knife pointed at his chest. Rivera positions himself in a closet near the bathroom. “Hey, let me see your hands!” Gilpin- Braithwaite shouts, with her gun pointed at the 24-year-old. “Let me see your hands!” Kempf holds the knife against his chest, screaming, “Shoot, shoot, shoot!” Navarro shouts that the subject is holding the knife. Gilpin-Braithwaite screams, “Don’t fuck- ing do it! Don’t do it, Daniel.” As Kempf walks out of the bathroom holding his towel around his waist and the knife still pointed at his chest, Rivera tases him. Simultaneously, Gil- pin-Braithwaite fires her gun. It’s unclear whether the shot hit him. Kempf clenches up, still trying to say, “Shoot, shoot, shoot.” A screenshot from Gilpin-Braithwaite’s body-worn camera just before she fires her gun and Rivera, in the closet doorway, unleashes his Taser. Homestead Police Department bodycamera footage screenshot | METRO | THEY DISCOVER KEMPF STANDING WITH A TOWEL AROUND HIS WAIST AND A KNIFE POINTED AT HIS CHEST.
