MIAMI – Detectives identified the suspect of a police chase from Key Biscayne to Miami’s Little Havana on Friday as Ashanti Erwin Earp, a father who has an arrest record in Miami-Dade County.
Police officers started to follow Earp after he allegedly pulled an AK-47 assault rifle out of a guitar case to threaten his ex-girlfriend’s father at Pita Pockets, a small Mediterranean restaurant at a strip mall along Crandon Boulevard in the village of Key Biscayne.
Earp, who just turned 31 on Wednesday, fled in a BMW sports utility vehicle on Crandon Boulevard, crossed Virginia Key and the Rickenbacker Causeway into the mainland, and sideswiped a Key Biscayne police patrol car on U.S.-1 in Miami, police said.
A Miami-Dade police helicopter pilot and police officers in patrol cars with the Miami and Miami-Dade police departments searched for the BMW, and found it at about 11:50 a.m., traveling northbound in the area of Northwest 12 Avenue and Seventh Street, police said
Earp turned and crashed into a car at Northwest 17 Avenue and Seventh Street, and into guardrails on the nearby ramp into State Road 836, also known as the Dolphin Expressway. He abandoned the BMW at the ramp and took off running.
Police officers caught up to him and arrested him shortly before 12 p.m., along Northwest 17 Avenue. Earp was wearing a medical gown when Miami-Dade correctional officers booked him at about 9:15 p.m., at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Related story: Key Biscayne police chase suspect was on probation over Miami Gardens weapon charge
Earp’s arrest record in Miami-Dade includes a Feb. 2 arrest in Miami Gardens for child neglect, possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance and openly carrying a weapon.
In 2017, Miami police officers arrested him for burglary, possession of burglary tools, and criminal mischief. In 2012, Miami police officers arrested him for resisting an officer without violence and marijuana possession.
In 2011, Miami-Dade police officers arrested him for marijuana possession. The court discharged the cases, but he was on a six-month probation that had started on Aug. 8 for the weapons charge in February, according to Miami-Dade court records.
For the case on Friday, Earp is facing new charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, fleeing and eluding police, and resisting an officer without violence.
Detectives were asking anyone with information about the case to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Wilson Louis contributed to this report.
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