SWEETWATER, Fla. – Police say Eduardo Pastrana, a 22-year-old who was already a wanted man, is the one who opened fire Thursday afternoon, injuring a man in Sweetwater.
Sweetwater police say the victim stepped out of a white pickup truck before he was shot in the lower body around 2 p.m. in the area of Southwest 108th Avenue and 5th Street.
An arrest report says the victim was shot five times in the legs, feet and buttocks, but he is in stable condition after being rushed to Kendall Regional Medical Center.
“A white pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road. At that point, another vehicle pulled up behind him and as the victim stepped out of the vehicle he was fired upon,” said Jonathan Arche of the Sweetwater Police Department.
Investigators say Pastrana, of Southwest Miami-Dade County, fled from responding officers. In doing so, his white Mercedes was involved in a hit-and-run crash, police say.
Pastrana was later tracked down with the help of a witness who was working on a roof.
He went before a judge Friday afternoon and faces charges of attempted felony murder with a firearm and fleeing the scene of a crash. He was ordered held without bond.
Pastrana was already listed as a fugitive by Florida’s Department of Corrections for violating his probation on a previous grand theft auto charge out of Orange County. Last July, he was arrested in Miami-Dade for stealing a man’s motorcycle, and again in December for a similar theft in Collier County.
“I don’t understand why these individuals think that they can continue to commit crimes, especially when they’re on probation or parole for another one,” Arche said.
The victim told police that he has known Pastrana for about a year and identified him as the gunman, according to the arrest report.
It is not clear from the report what prompted the shooting.
“The victim and the subject that was arrested knew each other, and we’re trying to figure out what it is that happened between them that made this occur,” Arche said.
Anyone with additional information about the shooting is asked to call Sweetwater police at 305-552-9900.