Woman shot dead by Miami-Dade police during eviction at Brickell apartment, cops say
A woman was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon by Miami-Dade police officers after she fired on them while they served an eviction at a Brickell highrise apartment building, the agency said.
Officers were serving the eviction at a unit on the 22nd story of the Brickell 1st building, when the woman opened fire on officers from the Eviction Squatter Task Force, a new unit created to deal with the tremendous backlog of evictions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.
The woman had earlier made threats, police said, and officers entered the unit armed with Kevlar shields, which repelled at least one of her shots. No officers were hurt.
“The subject fired at us and officers returned fire. It’s just an unfortunate outcome that she fired on my officers,” Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo
“Freddy” Ramirez said. “It hit their shields.”
Ramirez said there was “some dialogue” before the woman opened fire on the officers, who returned fire and killed her. The director said officers were forced to breach the entrance of the apartment, before the gunfire erupted.
The shooting happened at the luxury rental apartment building at 110 SW 12th St. It’s a mostly residential neighborhood of condominiums just south of downtown Miami, and a couple of blocks west of Brickell Avenue.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is now investigating the fatal shooting. Law enforcement agencies have not identified the woman, but said she was 40 years old.
“It’s tragic, but you can’t be shooting at police officers,” South Florida Police Benevolent Association President Steadman Stahl said.
Records show an eviction had been filed against a 40-year-old woman living on the building’s 22nd story. The Miami Herald is not naming her as she had not been officially identified as the woman killed by officers. Reached by phone, the lawyer who filed the eviction last month said a building manager “told me she was violent.”
Public records show the woman targeted for eviction had a history of troubles. In April 2020, a Miami doctor filed for a restraining order against her, claiming she was stalking him after they’d broken up. They’d only dated one month. He said she had a drug and alcohol problem.
The doctor claimed the woman harassed and stalked him for three weeks until he blocked all of her communications. In his complaint, he wrote that she was “obsessed with him” and that she “threatened to cause havoc” in his life. He also claimed that somebody on Facebook sent him a message that the woman was mentally ill and that his life was in “grave danger.”
The doctor said he filed a report with the State Attorney’s Office. A temporary restraining order was later dismissed after he failed to show for a hearing in September.
Late last month MiamiDade police formed the Eviction Squatter Task Force to help process the tremendous backlog of evictions and other courtordered actions that had been put on hold because of the pandemic.
Miami-Dade police “reallocated” 16 officers to the department’s Court Services Bureau, which normally handles evictions, the mayor’s office said last month.
Facing court challenges, Miami-Dade County has begun processing evictions filed during the COVID-19 pandemic but said it planned to delay evicting the most vulnerable tenants. Landlords had gone to court after a yearlong effort under two mayors to largely freeze the evictions process in the pandemic.