MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man is dead and another man and woman injured after gunfire rang out around 2 a.m. Thursday in Southwest Miami-Dade, police say.
Another woman was injured when her car crashed and flipped over as she was racing away from the scene of the shooting.
A group of people was standing outside a house in the area of SW 247th Terrace and SW 113th Court when someone opened fire, said Det. Alvaro Zabaleta of the Miami-Dade Police Department.
After a 911 call, police arrived to find the woman on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound, and she was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in critical but stable condition. Her brother identified her as 22-year-old Najah McNear and said she was shot in the leg.
An off-duty corrections officer was grazed in the hand and treated at the scene, authorities say. The officer is a two-year veteran of the department but his identity has not been released.
Homestead Hospital called police to report that a man showed up suffering from a gunshot wound. That man had surgery but died. He also has not yet been identified, but police said he was 24 years old.
After the shooting happened, people in the area fled the scene, including a woman who was driving so fast that she didn’t see a parked vehicle. Police say her Nissan Altima hit the parked car and flipped over.
She was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries sustained in the crash.
In an exclusive interview with Local 10 News, McNear’s brother Miguel said his sister was simply caught in the crossfire.
“She said she got shot in the leg. She was in the middle of the street yelling for help,” Miguel said.
He added that his sister was talking to a few friends outside her home on SW 247th Terrace when someone in a vehicle pulled up and started shooting at someone in a Chevy Malibu, which was still at the scene, riddled with bullets.
Those at the scene said the off-duty corrections officer was inside the Chevy.
“A car just came and running and started shooting at another dude,” Miguel said. “One guy I guess got grazed in the hand. The other one got shot in the neck.”
Miguel says his sister’s friend was driving the Altima that rolled over.
“When they started shooting, she pulled off — you know, protect herself and the car just flipped,” he said.
A woman who lives in the neighborhood recalled hearing the gunfire from bed.
“I had just laid down in bed and I heard like three pops,” Kathryn Ray said.
No arrests have been made. Miami-Dade police placed more than a dozen evidence markers at the scene Thursday morning, and they’re looking for witnesses and surveillance video.
“There was an exchange of gunfire, but we’re still trying to determine of course how this occurred, who the people that are involved,” Zabaleta said. “At any time that there’s gunfire, it puts the entire community at risk.”
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.