Not a single tip since Sunday’s mass shooting at Little River basketball courts, cops say
■ Four days after gunfire erupted, injuring eight people at a Northwest Miami-Dade basketball court, police say they haven’t received a single worthwhile tip.
Four days after two men opened fire at a popular Northwest Miami-Dade basketball court, injuring eight people, police said not a single witness has come forward with significant information and the father of one of the wounded blasted Miami-Dade County for a lack of security at the park.
“Two individuals, without provocation, drew firearms and started blasting into a crowd. It was totally senseless and barbaric,” Miami-Dade Detective Angel Rodriguez said Thursday from the site of the shooting. “We need somebody who saw something to come forth. Since Sunday not one tip has been provided.”
At the detective’s side was Pastor Keith Butler, the father of Kevin Butler, 25, who had just returned to the court Sunday night after a trip to McDonald’s and was eating his food on a bleacher when the shooting erupted. Kevin
Butler was shot in the leg. The bullet exited his body and he’s since been released from the hospital.
Keith Butler, who is married to a Miami police major, implored fellow pastors to bring up the shooting during Sunday sermons and request that any parishioner who has information come forward.
“Parents are afraid to speak. I am not,” said Keith Butler. “They [the shooters] have to get off the street immediately. Most of the parks are closed and there are no programs [for kids] while they are out of school. That is the perfect storm for violence. I demand justice and demand safety.”
At 7:09 p.m. Sunday night, two men with at least two weapons — one of them a semi-automatic rifle — approached the packed basketball courts at Little River Park, 10525 NW 24th Ave., and fired randomly into a crowd of people. When the shooting stopped, eight people, including two juveniles, were shot.
Some were treated at the scene, others were transported to local hospitals and at least one was airlifted to Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center. All were shot in the leg or buttocks area. By Thursday, police said, all but one of the victims had been released.
Since the shooting, police have heard lots of rumors, but found few that have panned out. They believe someone in the crowd fired back at the shooters because the 106 casings they recovered with the help of a K9 named “Trigger” came from at least four weapons. Nobody was able to give a good description of the shooters, other than that they were wearing black hooded sweaters and had black face coverings. One witness said they wore masks. Police have not even released the make or model of the vehicle they used.
Police have not been able to recover any surveillance video, either from the park or from any of the homes in the surrounding neighborhood, that captured any of the shooting or its aftermath.
Detectives have been looking into the possibility that the shooting was sparked by a social media post, that it is gang-related and that it may be related to an earlier shooting in the Miami area. But Thursday, one of the lead detectives on the case said he had no hard evidence to support any of those claims.
Police found victims, many who were running from the gunfire, scattered throughout the large park. Most of the shell casings were found on Northwest 24th Avenue on the park’s east side, where witnesses said the shooting came from. Witnesses said they saw muzzle flashes from two or three weapons. Miami-Dade Police and Crime Stoppers have upped the reward for information leading to arrests and conviction to $15,000.
“It shouldn’t matter where you play basketball,” Keith Butler said, adding that his son remained shell-shocked from the incident and shuddered a day earlier after hearing a nearby vehicle backfire.
The shooting continued an upward trend in gunfire in 2020, a year fueled by the pandemic and social unrest that has also led to a significant jump in murders in Miami-Dade and most other major cities around the country. Just two hours after the violence in Little River, four young males, some juvenile, were shot at Dominican food stand in Allapattah. They all survived. The shooter there has not been caught.
Along side Keith Butler at the park Thursday was attorney Marwan Porter, who said he was investigating whether to file a civil lawsuit against the county for a lack of security at the park. Porter claimed the Northwest Dade neighborhood was a hot spot for crime. Police on Thursday said that wasn’t the case for the area around the popular park and basketball courts.
“The only way to make change in our society is to hit them in the pocket,” said Porter.
Patty Abril, communications manager for Miami-Dade’s parks, recreation and open spaces, said she was limited in what she can say because of the threatened litigation. She said the Little River basketball courts, which are lit up at night, had been open until 9:30 p.m. prior to the shooting. For the rest of January they will close at 8 p.m.
She also said there was a county park staffer there during the shooting, as well as three park ambassadors, contracted workers hired to make sure people using the grounds are in compliance with the county’s COVID-19 safety rules.