MIAMI – Recovery continues after a tumultuous relationship between two police officers who had a child together devolved into such violence last year that detectives reported one nearly killed the other in Miami-Dade County.
It has been over five months since the tragedy, Yessenia Sanchez, who is no longer a police officer, was at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center while Officer Damian Colon was at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Colon wore sunglasses when he arrived on a stretcher. He appeared to be asleep as a crowd of about a dozen welcomed him at JMH. Some wore black “#DamianStrong” T-shirts with the white icon of a brain.
“He has made great progress,” MDPD Director Freddy Ramirez said during a news conference on Wednesday at JMH to announce Colon’s return from a facility in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sanchez, who was arrested for domestic violence in 2021 and 2022, stands accused in Miami-Dade of shooting Colon, her ex-boyfriend, in the head.
Sanchez lost her job with the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department after Colon accused her in 2021 of throwing a ceramic object at him, damaging the tires of his personal car and his department-issued patrol car, and threatening to kill herself with a gun and a knife, according to police.
In turn, Sanchez accused Colon, a veteran at MDPD, of slapping her in the face, but police officers didn’t find her allegations merited his arrest, so they arrested her instead, according to the arrest report about the domestic violence incident on Sept. 13, 2021, in Miami Lakes.
The two had broken up last year when police officers reported going to a house on Nov. 4, 2022, near the intersection of West 79 Street and 13 Avenue, in Hialeah, and finding Colon bleeding outside. Sanchez had shot him in the head and fled in her truck, according to the Hialeah Police Department.
Sanchez later crashed into several vehicles in the area of Palm Avenue and 45 Street, in Hialeah, got out of the truck, and ran eastbound on 45 Street to her home, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, where police officers later arrested her, according to the arrest report.
A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue helicopter pilot flew Colon to JMH’s Ryder Trauma Center where he had surgery and was treated at the center’s intensive care unit. For months, Miami-Dade police officers have been visiting Colon at JMH to show their support as he continues treatment.
“The one thing Damian told me was, ‘Thank you for everything,’ so I will repeat that,” Ramirez said during the news conference Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the criminal case against Sanchez remained pending. During the investigation into the shooting, Hialeah detectives reported finding evidence that she had used a mobile phone app to stalk Colon long before she followed him to his home and shot him on Nov. 4, 2022.
Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation records show Sanchez has been at TGK since Nov. 5, 2022, facing charges on two cases. Court records show prosecutors filed a case against her on Nov. 6, 2022, for attempted murder with a deadly weapon, a first-degree felony, and for stalking, a misdemeanor.
When Sanchez first appeared in court for the attempted murder case, a judge ordered her to stay away from Colon and denied her bond. Records show Sanchez also has a warrant on a pending case for leaving the scene of an accident with property damage.
Sanchez’s next pre-trial status hearing in the attempted murder case is set for 9 a.m., on April 26, and Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Richard Hersch is presiding over the case, court records show.
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