Police arrest man wanted for shooting at officers in Perrine
A man who “matched the description” of a wanted suspect opened fire on four police officers Wednesday night as they approached him in the Perrine area of South MiamiDade, police said.
Fenqwavious Lopez, 22, was arrested and charged late Thursday night with four counts of attempted murder on a law enforcement officer and three counts of discharging a weapon.
No officers were injured in the shooting, but three unmarked police cars were sprayed with bullets.
Lopez, who was arrested July 30 and charged with a weapon/open carry violation and resisting without arrest, was being held
Friday in Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with no bond.
According to police, members of the MiamiDade Police Department’s South District Gang Unit and the Homicide Bureau’s Street Violence Task Force were in the area for another investigation. Police did not give details on the investigation that brought them to the area.
Lopez, police say, was walking on the sidewalk near the intersection of Evergreen Street and Homestead Avenue when the four officers in three separate unmarked cars approached him.
That’s when Lopez “pulled a firearm from his front waistband and began to discharge the firearm,” an officer wrote in Lopez’s arrest report. Two of the officers fired back. Police said all three vehicles were hit, but none the officers were hurt. Police shared a photo of the door of a white truck with four bullet holes.
It was not clear what led police to Lopez.
“Through investigative means, detectives were able to identify and locate the individual responsible for the shooting,” police said in a news release.
After being taken into custody and read his rights, police say Lopez confessed to the shooting.
“Relieved to hear that an arrest was made in this case last night,” Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez said in a tweet Friday. “Attacks on our police officers are totally unacceptable and those responsible must be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law.”
This was the third time since July 24 that a gunman has fired on MiamiDade officers. On Aug. 1, officers fatally shot a fugitive after the man, identified as James Justin Munro, shot a Miami-Dade police officer in his bulletproof vest.
And on July 24, Ariel
Ruiz Martinez, 46, was killed after an “exchange of gunfire” with officers from Miami-Dade’s Priority Response Team. Police said Martinez had shot and wounded an acquaintance of his estranged wife outside her house on the 7600 block of Southwest 153rd Court, drove erratically, and then hit a construction sign.