A 75-year-old Florida woman celebrating her birthday in Miami was shot along with her son and another man when an angry neighbor opened fire while looking for someone who had offended him, police said.
According to Miami Police, 38-year-old Angelo Garcia approached the home around 1 a.m. Friday, demanding to know where the person who had upset him was. When told the individual was in Cuba, Garcia allegedly began shooting.
An arrest report obtained by WPLG states that surveillance footage captured Garcia speaking to the victims in the front yard before firing multiple shots. Witnesses told officers that Garcia had been throwing rocks at parked cars just moments before the shooting began.
The victims — the 75-year-old woman, her 53-year-old son, and a 26-year-old man — were rushed to a nearby hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. Police said all three survived. The younger victim remains in serious condition, while the woman and her son are in serious but stable condition.
After the attack, Garcia fled the scene and barricaded himself inside a room at The Comfort Suites Miami-Kendall. SWAT officers and local police later stormed the room and took him into custody early Saturday morning.
“It was almost 2 a.m.,” hotel guest Tito Polaco told WPLG. “I was in bed watching TV when I heard six or seven loud booms.”
Neighbors said the shooting shocked their normally peaceful community. “Nothing like this has ever happened here before,” resident Alfredo Cruz told WFOR. “It’s a good area. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Another neighbor, Carla Perez Miranda, said she heard “six shots go off” and a woman screaming in Spanish, “You killed them!”
Garcia is facing multiple charges, including four counts of second-degree attempted murder or aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, displaying a firearm while committing a felony, and unlawful discharge of a firearm in a residential area, according to jail records.
He remains held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade County.
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