Miami Beach man shot outside home, now in coma. Suspect first asked for $1
.jpg "Miami Beach police say a 25-year-old-man was shot in the stomach by a man who first asked for $1.")
A man sitting on the stoop of his Miami Beach apartment was shot in the stomach by a man who first asked for $1, then demanded more — an attack police called “senseless.”
Miami Beach police say the 25-year-old victim, whose identity is being withheld, remained in critical condition on Tuesday. He was sitting with a friend outside of his apartment on Eighth Street and Michigan Avenue at about 4:30 a.m. July 21, when a man walking by asked for “un peso,” or one dollar.
When the victim reached for his wallet, his friend told police, the suspect pulled a small black firearm from his waistband and said, “Give me everything.” The suspect then grabbed the wallet and fired a single round into the victim’s stomach and took off on foot.
The victim’s friend said they had never seen the gunman before. The victim was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he remained Tuesday. Doctors induced a coma. Police said the bullet didn’t exit the man’s body. His condition and prognosis weren’t immediately available.
The Miami Beach shooting, which happened only a day before the shooting death of a Coral Gables maintenance worker who police say was also targeted for robbery, alarmed some law enforcement officers for their sheer “randomness.” In both cases, the suspects didn’t know the victim and neither shooting was retaliatory or the result of anger after an argument, like most. They were just horrible endings to crimes of opportunity, police said.
“It appears to be a completely senseless and unnecessary act of violence,” said Miami Beach Police Spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez. “Thankfully, the victim in this case is still fighting for his life.”
The witness to the Miami Beach shooting last week described the gunman as about 30 years old, under six feet tall and said he had short bleach-blond curly hair with dark fades on the side. He was wearing a long-sleeved zipper jacket with red stripes on the arms.
On July 23, the day after the man was shot on Miami Beach, police say two teens rode up to a 67-year-old maintenance worker outside a Coral Gables condominium and shot and killed Jorge Romero-Gil, after trying to rob him.
Jermaine Lamount Walker, 17, and Gary Ragin, 18, were eventually captured and charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery — but only after a two-hour massive manhunt involving K9s, SWAT members and helicopters that closed down parts of Coral Gables and finally ended in Miami’s Coconut Grove.
Gil, married and the father of two daughters, was described as the family patriarch and a “hero” by one of his children, who spoke with a reporter from WPLG Channel 10. They said he worked for years before being able to bring them to the U.S. from Colombia.
“Great father, a lovely father,” Romero-Gil’s daughter, Erika Romero said. “A father that works really hard for his family.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 6:31 PM.
