MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Police have identified the man they arrested Monday after a pursuit ended in a crash in northwest Miami-Dade. Authorities said they were looking for him in connection with a homicide in Louisville, Kentucky over the weekend.
Liobys Caro-Mena, 38, a Cuban national who resides in Louisville, was wanted by that city’s police department as a “person of interest” in the killing of Alain Garcia Perez, 45. On Tuesday, officials with the Louisville Metro Police Department announced that Caro-Mena was being charged with murder.
According to Louisville police, Garcia Perez found “obviously deceased from apparent injuries due to blunt force trauma” at his home in the city’s Iroquois neighborhood on Sunday.
According to statements in court, Caro-Mena has been in the country for about a year and a half; both he and Garcia Perez have ties to South Florida.
Caro-Mena is set to be extradited to Kentucky, but he’s also facing charges in South Florida in connection with the chase, which ended at around 7:45 a.m. on Northwest 27th Avenue, just south of Northwest 119th Street.
Miami-Dade police said they had gotten word that Caro-Mena, who was driving Garcia Perez’s red Chevrolet Camaro, was possibly in South Florida and detectives had searched the area for the coupe before spotting him.
“They attempted to conduct a felony stop and once the vehicle came to a stop and the officer tried to approach the vehicle that’s when the subject decided to flee from the scene,” Miami-Dade police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said Monday.
Zabaleta said the wanted man struck a car but kept driving, then lost control near the Northwest 119th Street intersection, struck another vehicle and flipped the coupe over.
Caro-Mena, police said, crashed into six vehicles and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. No one else was seriously hurt.
According to an arrest report, the stolen Camaro was taken to the FBI’s field office in Miramar.
Locally, Caro-Mena faces felony charges of grand theft auto, fleeing and eluding police and leaving the scene of a crash without serious bodily injury. Police also cited him for reckless driving and driving without a license.
He was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Tuesday afternoon, pending extradition to Kentucky on the murder charge.