Police: Ex-boyfriend broke into woman’s home, set it on fire

A man was arrested Sunday evening after breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home in Sunrise and setting it on fire, causing over $100,000 in damage, police say. He was carrying a loaded gun with one round in the chamber.

Keith Derick Mitchell, 36, of Fort Lauderdale, now faces charges of armed burglary, second-degree arson, committing a third degree felony with a firearm, criminal mischief, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, resisting an officer without violence, and tampering with physical evidence, jail records show.

Sunrise Police responded to the home in the 5400 block of Northwest 92nd Avenue in reference to a burglary in progress Sunday afternoon, according to a probable cause affidavit. The victim told officers that she saw her ex-boyfriend over CCTV camera, entering the home through the back sliding door. The affidvait didn’t say whether she was in the house at the time.

Mitchell had no residency in the house, did not have regular access or a key and did not have consent to enter it, the affidavit says.

He walked up to the camera inside the home and angled it away from himself, according to the affidavit, then walked further into the house, where there is no camera.

Mitchell then set multiple fires inside the house, according to the affidavit, in the living room on the first floor and the master bedroom on the second floor. The victim could not see Mitchell but watched as smoke appeared on camera.

The damage “was estimated to be in excess of $100,000,” the affidavit states.

Officers then saw Mitchell walk east down Commercial Boulevard, away from the home. He was wearing the same clothing as seen in the video, in the middle of tossing his sweatshirt into a bush.

When officers tried to handcuff Mitchell and put him in the back of a patrol car, he “began to brace and pull” in an effort to resist them, but did not succeed, according to the affidavit. They found a lighter on him as well as ash residue on his hat.

When officers “removed the sweatshirt,” a semi-automatic handgun fell out, according to the affidavit. It was fully loaded with one round in the chamber.

Mitchell has a history of four prior convictions, according to the affidavit. He was sentenced in 2010 to 13 years in prison after being convicted of attempted burglary and robbery with a deadly weapon, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle, and carrying a concealed weapon while a felon, prison records show.

Mitchell was released from prison in 2022, then arrested again in April 2023, accused of punching his girlfriend and taking her phone, according to Broward County court records.

The State Attorney’s Office did not file charges because the victim refused to testify and said she did not desire charges, according to a prosecutors’ memo. She also received her phone back undamaged.

Meanwhile, video surveillance of the altercation “depicts mutual combat — the victim was pushing the defendant out her space and then he started hitting her,” prosecutors wrote.

“Unfortunately, prosecutors were unable to go forward with the case because the victim in the case declined to testify,” spokesperson Paula McMahon said in an email.

Mitchell returned to prison briefly that May, then was released again in June.

He was being held Wednesday night in the Broward Main Jail on $15,000 bond.

Mitchell