MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man has been arrested and charged after getting into a dangerous altercation with a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crew that even resulted in him banging a fire truck windshield — and it wasn’t the only emergency vehicle he damaged that very same day.
The incident occurred Sunday afternoon at the intersection of Southwest Eighth Street and 42nd Avenue. According to police, the incident stemmed from of traffic crash at Southwest 8th Street and 22nd Avenue earlier in the day.
However, for an unknown reason, as a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue truck showed up to the intersection where the crash occurred, he grabbed a baseball bat from his car and began smashing the windshield.
Cellphone video recorded by a bystander shows the man, who was later identified as 30-year-old Jesus Santana-Jardines, dressed all in white striking the front windshield of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue truck with a baseball bat, cracking the glass and causing about $4,000 in damage.
It doesn’t appear that anyone inside the fire truck was injured.
A Coral Gables police officer arrived at the scene first and took Santana-Jardines into custody. However, the incident is being investigated by the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Police said a bag of cocaine was also found in his vehicle.
According to his arrest report, Santana-Jardines continued to be combative on the way to jail and told the officer “he would not be going to jail and to stop the vehicle.” Police say he even started kicking the back door and window of the police car to try to escape from the vehicle.
“As I proceeded to TGK, the defendant began to kick the rear driver-side door/window in attempts to escape the marked patrol vehicle,” the officer wrote in the arrest report.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue told Local 10 the incident inside of the police vehicle resulted in $2,000 worth of damage to the car.
On Monday, Santana-Jardines was formally charged with criminal mischief, resisting arrest with violence, and possession of cocaine.
In court, he told Judge Mindy Glazer through a translator that he thought someone was going to kill him.
“I was driving and it was the gas station — it was seven to eight people coming after me that they were going to kill me,” he told the judge through the translator. “They were coming after me. I got their names and last names. I have video and pictures. I saw the cop coming after me, so I dropped the bat.”