Newsman: Two people were killed and 20 people wounded at a concert early morning today in Northwest Miami-Dade in what authorities say is one of the largest mass shootings in the county in recent memory. Three of those injured are in critical condition, according to police. Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez said, “We believe this is a targeted act of gun violence,” Ramirez said. “This is a despicable act of gun violence, a cowardly act.”
“This type of gun violence has to stop,” Miami-Dade Police Director Ramirez said. “Every weekend it is the same thing. This is targeted, this is definitely not random.” “It is very difficult to stop a small amount of individuals who want to go out there and commit murder, and it takes all of us to stop this” Director Alfredo Ramirez said. “We really have to put the work in this summer to keep our children and community safe.”
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava tweeted Sunday that she is working closely with public safety officials to “bring criminals to justice” and “fight violence at the root with strategies aimed at prevention & intervention.”
“We must create alternate pathways for at-risk youth and we must build safer, more prosperous neighborhoods to stem the tide of violence,” Levine Cava tweeted. “Enough is enough — no more innocent lives lost.”
Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez said, the shooting started after midnight outside a concert at a banquet hall in a large shopping center on the 7600 block of Northwest 186th Street. The banquet hall had been rented out for the rap concert, police said. Some concert-goers were outside when a white Nissan Pathfinder pulled up, Ramirez said. Three unidentified people stepped out of the SUV with assault rifles and handguns and began shooting “indiscriminately” into the crowd, Ramirez said. Police going through the crime scene found hundreds of casings.
There were so many wounded as the chaotic scene unfolded in the parking lot of the banquet hall overnight that detectives were trying to assemble the identities of all the victims around noon. Victims were transported to handful different hospitals, some in ambulances and others in their own cars.
Relatives Friends and family of some of the 20 to 25 injured in the Sunday mass shooting gathered together to pray outside the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Police do not yet have description of the three people who shot into the crowd. Anyone with information on the shooting or shooters is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
The venue, El Mula Banquet Hall, is located in the Country Club Shopping Center in an unincorporated area north of the State Road 826 big curve near the Country Club of Miami. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue took eight of the injured to Miami-Dade and Broward hospitals, said Miami-Dade police spokesman Detective An Director Alfredo “Freddy gel Rodriguez. In addition, he said, more than 12 other victims went to various hospitals on their own.Top of Form
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A Miami-Dade police officer told the MIAMI Herald that all of the stores in the shopping center — including day cares, a restaurant, a nail salon and a bakery — were closed until further notice. The officer said one restaurant owner was briefly allowed inside to turn off their stove.
This is the second major shooting in the Miami area over the Memorial Day weekend. Late Friday into Saturday, one person was killed and six others wounded outside of a building in a drive-by shooting in the Wynwood area of Miami. Dozens of shell casings from at least two separate caliber weapons littered the street.
There was also a brazen shooting and car chase early Thursday evening near Casino Miami Jai-Alai in which three people were injured. One of them was an innocent bystander who was shot during the carnage, along with two people in one of the cars.
