Attacker who ate victim's face 'high on drugs'

A man shot dead by police after he was found naked and eating another man's face may have been high on drugs, police say.

The victim of the attack, who police believe is homeless, is in a critical condition in a Florida hospital after he was found unconscious, with a man hovering over him chewing on his eyeballs and flesh.

The circumstances surrounding the attack are still under investigation but a witness has come forward to describe the grisly scene he stumbled across while riding his bike on a Florida highway.

Larry Vega told a local television station he saw the nude attacker leaning across the man, taking bites out of his face.

"And the guy was like tearing him to pieces with his mouth, so I told him, 'Get off!'" he said.

"You know it's like the guy just kept eating the other guy away like ripping his skin."

Mr Vega was able to flag down a police officer, who approached the attacker and told him to step away, but the man simply 'stood his head up like that with a piece of flesh in his mouth and growled'.

The officer then had no choice but to shoot the man dead.

The attacker is thought to have been high on a potent new form of LSD, a Miami police spokesman said.

"What's happening is whenever we see that a person has taken all of his clothes off and has become violent, it's indicative of this excited delirium that's caused by overdose of drugs," he said.

"What's happening is inside their body their organs are burning up alive."