NORTHEAST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. – Cell phone video of a gunman injured and laying beside a Florida Highway Patrol car Wednesday shows minutes after a driver stopped his car in Northeast Miami-Dade and ambushed a trooper as he sat in his car Wednesday afternoon.
Sky 10 was over the scene just before 3 p.m. Wednesday where there was a heavy police presence and crime scene tape at the intersection of Northeast 186th Street and Dixie Highway. Police said the incident happened at Miami Gardens Drive and West Dixie Highway.
One witness said he saw what happened.
“(The driver) just got out , stopped, got out, ran to the state trooper who was there on detail all day, and shot through the window,” Matthew Cooper said, adding that he was amazed the trooper was not hit.
Multiple bullet holes could be seen in the driver’s-side window of the officer’s vehicle. Witnesses said the trooper was parked there to monitor traffic where construction is underway in the busy area.
Florida Highway Patrol Major Christopher Dellapietra said the subject approached the car and began firing into the patrol vehicle.
“At which time, the trooper immediately responded and returned fire, striking the subject in the roadway and ceasing the threat,” he said.
Cellphone video recorded by a driver showed the trooper with his gun drawn, standing over the man who was lying on the ground. The trooper can then be seen removing a gun from the suspect and placing it on the back of the marked vehicle. You can hear witnesses in the background describing the shooting.
“He shot a cop,” one man said.
Other video taken by a witness shows the suspect on the ground from a different vantage point as the trooper tries to help him.
The suspect’s white car remained parked in the lanes of traffic within walking distance from the trooper’s marked unit. Remarkably, he wasn’t hit in the gunfire.
During the gunfire, one of the bullets went through a window at the nearby Greenfield Animal Hospital, but no one was injured inside.
The gunman was transported to Aventura Hospital & Medical Center while investigators now work to find out what led up to the shooting. His condition is not known at this time.