MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A woman tells Local 10 News that she and her boyfriend, a fellow bodybuilder, made a huge mistake when they conducted a photoshoot with an assault rifle at a West Kendall strip mall; police said a panicked mother called them after seeing the gun pointed at a daycare there.
That led Miami-Dade police to arrest the pair Monday afternoon on felony charges of aggravated assault with a firearm and exhibiting a firearm on school property.
Estrella Maria Pereira, 50, told Local 10 News that when she and Miguel Ruiz, 57, went to the Crystal Plaza Shopping Center, located at the corner of Southwest 112th Street and 122nd Avenue, they were there to take bodybuilding pictures.
“We’re just in the bodybuilding world and we went to take some bodybuilding pictures, like as strong athletes,” she said. “I promise, we would never do anything to harm anyone.”
According to an arrest report, officers pulled up just before 4 p.m. to see Ruiz holding the loaded rifle while kneeling in a “firing position” and taking aim towards the daycare’s door — with Pereira snapping photos of him.
She said she had no idea the strip mall contained a daycare.
“I don’t even live there, I live in Brickell and there’s no sign that says daycare,” Pereira, who bonded out of jail, said. “I would have never, ever done anything so ridiculous as like this, had I known that there were children, or any school in the area, ever.”
Surveillance video, police said, corroborated the mother’s account that Ruiz was “holding a rifle and pointing it in all directions, including towards the daycare/school and in her direction.”
“We were literally just taking pictures,” Pereira said. “We didn’t mean to do anything wrong. We’re not bad people.”
Apologizing for the duo’s decision and the chaos it caused, Pereira said she believes the incident was blown out of proportion.
“It was. It really was,” she said. “It’s saddening because it was just a really dumb decision.”
Ruiz bonded out of jail Wednesday evening.
“It was a huge mistake,” he told Local 10′s Christian De La Rosa outside the jail. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was a daycare right there.”
Pereira said the two have dated for the past few years.