MIAMI – Police arrested a northwest Miami-Dade man Friday after they accused him of being part of a group who followed and robbed a pair of victims who had just bought a Rolex watch in Miami’s Design District last month.
Twenty-two-year-old Davontae McCrae is facing numerous felony charges. The report mentions three other men, who were unidentified as of Monday morning.
Recommended Videos
Police said the robbery happened on Aug. 19, when the group followed the two victims after they left the Rolex store in their Land Rover, driving northbound on Northeast Second Avenue.
As they stopped at a red light at the Northwest 62nd Street intersection, a gray Lexus bumped into the SUV, investigators wrote.
When the SUV driver got out, one of the men exited the front passenger’s seat of the Lexus, carrying a gun, and McCrae got out of the rear passenger’s seat, according to police.
The man pointed the gun at the victim and said “gimme the f---ing Rolly,” police wrote. The man then got into the Land Rover through the driver’s side door, pointed the gun at the other victim, and repeated: “gimme the f---ing Rolly,” pointing to the bag containing the newly-purchased watch on the passenger-side floorboard.
The man grabbed the bag and all of the men got back into the Lexus and sped off, police said. One of the victims was able to see the license plate of the Lexus as it passed by and provided the information to police.
Miami Real-Time Crime Center surveillance cameras captured the entire robbery, investigators wrote.
The next day, Miami Gardens police found the vehicle unoccupied behind a house on Northeast 207th Road.
Miami police said they reviewed surveillance video and were able to identify McCrae as one of the men in the video and used vehicle and cellphone GPS data to place him at the site of the robbery; they said fingerprints from the vehicle also matched McCrae’s.
A detective “previously spoke to (McCrae) at length in relation (to) an unrelated but similar robbery,” officers wrote.
Surveillance video also showed the Lexus circling the area outside the Rolex store, parking in multiple different spots, “consistent with tactics utilized by offenders when they are conducting surveillance prior to a robbery,” police wrote.
On Friday, police executed a search warrant at McCrae’s home on Northwest 173rd Street and arrested him.
Investigators wrote that he confessed to the crime under questioning.