By Jim Turner (Contact) - TCPalm.com
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL -- Angie Morales-Pena, 44, always thought she and her twin brother, Manny, would die at about the same age.
On Sunday, sitting with her parents in the home they shared with her brother for almost five years, she cast some of the blame upon herself for his death earlier in the day.
But she also questioned why the Port St. Lucie police needed to gun Manny down in his bedroom.
“I called for help, to come talk to my brother, and they killed him. I don’t understand,” Morales-Pena said.
“I’m stunned, in shock, we haven’t slept, our lives have been changed forever. He’s my brother and I will miss him.”
Manuel Salvador “Manny” Morales Jr., shot twice on his left side below the chest, was pronounced dead early Sunday morning, shortly after being taken to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute’s trauma center in Fort Pierce.
According to Port St. Lucie Police spokesman Officer Tom Nichols, two officers confronted an armed Morales in a bedroom of the four-bedroom Southwest Croquet Street home at about 1 a.m. Sunday.
“When the officers went into the bedroom, they gave Mr. Morales several commands and he failed to comply,” Nichols said. “Therefore the officers felt their lives were in jeopardy.”
Officer Albert Riccardi fired two shots with his department issued Glock .40 caliber handgun.
The officers had to force their way through a closed door to enter the bedroom, Nichols said. Police did not release how Manny Morales was armed.
Manuel Morales Sr. said he was looking into the bedroom from the back yard and it appeared police used a taser on his son before the shooting. No one at the Morales home Sunday said they saw the shooting or if Manny Morales was armed.
Angie Morales-Pena said they found a butter knife in the bedroom after the police left.
“We need to know what happened in that room,” she said. “We have no weapons, all we have in this house is a B.B. gun.”
Morales-Pena had returned home from the movies with her 12-year-old daughter and a friend at about 12:30 a.m. A short time later, she found her brother in the kitchen threatening himself with knives.
They started to argue and she called police in fear that her brother would hurt himself.
Manny Morales, a former peer counselor with the 19th Circuit Public Defender’s Office, had grown depressed looking for work, his sister said. He had recently been treated for schizophrenia and was drinking Saturday night, Morales-Pena said.
“He just needed help at that moment,” she said. “Now I’ll never see my brother again.”
Riccardi, who has been with the department for about a year and a half, has been placed on administrative leave with pay as the department continues to investigate the incident, Nichols said.
The department’s investigation may take about a week before the results are presented to a grand jury.
