MIAMI – A 33-year-old man whose father serves as a Miami-Dade school board member stands accused of trying to kill a police officer in Miami-Dade County.
Steve Gallon, who was in handcuffs, was wearing a “MAXIMUM CUSTODY INMATE” red uniform in court on Monday. His father, Steve Gallon III, who was the principal of Miami Northwestern Senior High School and has been a serving member of the School Board of Miami-Dade County since 2016, was in the courtroom.
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“I raised my son, love my son, and I am standing by my son,” Gallon III wrote in a statement after his son’s court appearance. “Despite the allegations that have been made against him, he has a right to the presumption of innocence afforded to every citizen. I will continue to be present with him through this very difficult process — trusting and praying that the system seeks the truth and does justice.”
Gallon IV was booked at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on March 9, records show. He was scheduled to have a hearing on Monday to see if he was eligible for bond for the non-bondable charge of attempted murder of a police officer, but the court postponed it.
Records show Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Judge Alberto Milian rescheduled the Monday hearing to 10 a.m., on Wednesday. The procedure includes a mini-trial without a jury, so the defense subpoenas witnesses.
Detectives believe Gallon IV was trying to help his friend Atiba Moore when he allegedly approached an undercover narcotics detective from behind and shot at him on March 8 in Miami. The bullet grazed the detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department in the neck, police said.
After a search that involved police officers from the Miami and Miami-Dade police departments, police officers arrested Gallon IV and three other men at a house on the corner of Northwest Fifth Avenue and 42 Street, east of Miami’s Liberty City and west of the Design District.
Prosecutors charged Moore, 30, with solicitation to commit first-degree murder, Gallon IV with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer with a firearm, and Kendrick Watkins, Frederick Watkins, and Andre Darrell with accessory after the fact, records show.
Gallon IV, who lives in Miramar and was a high school and college football player, has an arrest record that includes a 2018 arrest for loitering and a 2013 arrest for marijuana possession, but he has never been convicted of a crime, records show. Attorney Roderick Vereen was representing Gallon IV in this case.
Coverage of the shooting