Miami witness describes horror of cannibalistic attack

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami man on Monday described how he watched in horror after spotting a naked man gnawing away at the face and neck of another man in a ghoulish attack on a highway ramp in downtown Miami.

"He was ripping into his face with his teeth," Larry Vega said of the attacker.

"He was ripping his skin, his neck. He had him held down. The guy couldn't move really, and he was just tearing into his flesh," Vega told WSVN TV in Miami about Saturday's attack.

Vega flagged down a police officer, who shot and killed the assailant after he failed to respond to repeated orders to stop and back away.

"The guy just stood his head up like that, with a piece of flesh in his mouth, and growled," Vega said.

Police have said the attacker may have been in some sort of a drug-induced craze or delirium.

The victim of the attack is in critical condition at a Miami hospital.

Vega said he was riding his bicycle Saturday afternoon off the MacArthur Causeway into downtown Miami when he saw the attack on the bridge's off-ramp.

"It was one of the most gruesome things I've ever seen in my life in person," Vega said.

"You see these things in the movies but when you see it up front and up close, it's pretty traumatic. It really is," he said.

The causeway connects downtown Miami with Miami Beach and the Miami end of the bridge is a magnet for many of the city's homeless people.

(Reporting By Tom Brown; Editing by Eric Beech)