Editor’s note: this story contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some!
The Miami Herald has released terrifying surveillance footage of the entire gruesome attack on a homeless man Saturday, in which a naked man on drugs named Rudy Eugene literally ate another man’s face in Florida. At eighteen minutes long, the uncensored video also helps determine exactly what happened that day.
According to CBSMiami, Eugene had driven to South Beach the morning of
the attack to check out the Memorial Day weekend festivities, but was
unable to start his car to make a return trip. Leaving his sedan to be
towed, Eugene seemingly decided to attempt the roughly three mile trek
on foot.
CBS continues:It was a hot day, with temperatures in the 90′s, and a long walk…As he walked across the causeway, [police] said he started stripping, leaving his clothes on the walkway and in the road.Continue to watch the video. And while the camera is located too far away to make out specifics of the attack, it does eventually zoom in and is disturbing. VIEWERS DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED.
Cops found his drivers license and clothes strewn from the beach to the mainland.
Had he not abandoned his car, Eugene likely would have driven right past the spot along the causeway under the elevated track of the MetroMover where he met Robert Poppo about 2 p.m.
Instead, on foot, he ran into the 68 year old homeless man, who police believe he’d never seen until that moment. It was at that point that police believe Eugene set in motion the events that led to his death at the hands of police and Poppo’s gruesome mutilation.
The horrifying footage shows 31-year-old Rudy Eugene striking homeless Ronald Poppo, removing his pants, then brutalizing his face in broad daylight for roughly 18 minutes as traffic continued on the busy MacArthur Causeway.
More specifically, the Huffington Post summarizes:
[Footage] picks up a fully naked Eugene just before 2 p.m. as he walked down the exit ramp on the other side of the bridge. Pausing in a shady spot, he reels or spins slightly as a bicyclist whizzes by, then is mostly lost to sight as he bends over the homeless Poppo where he sat or lay on the ground.The Miami Herald is also reporting that at least five different people called the police, and while police suspect Eugene was under the influence of a potent drug referred to as “bath salts,” no drugs or paraphernalia were found on the scene.
About two minutes, later, however, Eugene rolls Poppo into the middle of the sidewalk. He appears to strip away some of the older man’s clothing and then savage his face as Poppo futilely resists. Several minutes later, Eugene again drags Poppo farther down the sidewalk and continues to attack him before another cyclist rolls slowly by and a white car pauses on the off-ramp, just on the other side of a short wall separating the roadway from the bike path.
Gruesome photos circulating the web would later confirm most of Poppo’s face, including his nose, eyes, and mouth, was ripped away, in what Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police vice president Sgt. Javier Ortiz told the Associated Press was of the “goriest scenes I’ve ever been to.” Poppo remains in critical condition.
“He had his face eaten down to his goatee. The forehead was just bone. No nose, no mouth,” said Sgt. Armando Aguilar, Miami FOP president. “In my opinion, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
