Teen relative is taken into custody after death of Miami High football coach

The teenage relative of Miami High football coach Corey Smith was taken into custody Thursday afternoon and lawenforcement sources say he will be charged with the man’s death.

The teenwas detained Thursday and will face a charge of second-degree murder, law-enforcement sources told the Miami Herald. The teen, who authorities say has a history of mental problems, will be charged as an adult.

The arrest adds another terrible twist for a family beset by tragedy.

The teen is the son of Lamar Alexander, 41, the ex-con who last November hijacked a UPS driver, led cops on a high-speed chase and died during a televised shootout on a busy Miramar street. Smith and Alexander were technically cousins, but were raised as brothers — and Smith considered the teen his nephew.

“In life, you gotta make better decisions,” Smith said of Lamar Alexander the day after the shootout. “We weren’t raised like that. I love my brother, but he’s been making bad decisions his whole life.”

Family members said the troubled teen called last week to reconnect.

“He asked to come over,” said Amina Smith, the coach’s wife. “We hadn’t seen him since his dad passed. Corey picked him up Sunday night and he spent the night. I left to go to work.”

Then, on Monday morning, shots rang out and police officers rushed to the house on the 2100 block of Northwest 97th Street.

The teen initially told police that he had been studying when the shots rang out. He was interviewed for hours at the Miami-Dade Police Department but was released.

In addition to his biological father’s shooting death, the teen’s past couple of years had been troubled.

In May 2018, he was arrested on allegations of making a bomb threat at Georgia Jones-Ayers Middle School in Allapattah.

According to an arrest report, administrators received “numerous phone calls” that a bomb would explode unless the school was evacuated. Investigators traced the calls to a phone on the campus; the teen and two others were arrested.

His case in juvenile court was still ongoing before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Yery Marrero. It was stalled because of ongoing mental-health woes — four times he was declared incompetent to proceed to trial, according to multiple sources familiar with his case.