MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – A fatal police-involved shooting was under investigation on Friday in Miami Gardens.
A gunman died after a shootout involving agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and police officers with the Miami Gardens Police Department, authorities confirmed.
Relatives identified him to Local 10 News as 27-year-old Daniel Lewis.
Miami Gardens Chief Delma Noel-Pratt said the federal agents and police officers were working together near Northwest 161st Street and 27th Place after recent shootings.
“We have been out here doing proactive detail as a result of a lot of the activity that has occurred in the last couple of weeks,” Noel-Pratt said.
There were two firearms next to Lewis’s body. Police officers arrested three other suspects who were with Lewis during the shooting, including his sister and cousin.
According to Lewis’s mother, her son had just stepped outside their home when he was shot.
“I watched them kill my son,” Angela Lewis said.
According to Angela Lewis, her daughter told them someone was chasing her from a nearby store.
“My daughter was beating on the back door, saying someone was chasing them from the store, which it turned out to be the police,” Angela Lewis said. “When they got here, my son naturally, who was in the house, came outside to see what was going on. He just took two steps off the back porch and they shot him five times.”
But police tell a different story, saying officers were in an undercover car when they were shot at. At least two Miami Gardens police officers and one ATF agent returned fire.
“I don’t take this lightly,” Noel-Pratt said. “In fact, for them to be so brazen to fire upon our law enforcement officials -- two of my officers took it upon themselves to go ahead and fire their weapon as a result of our officers being fired upon.”
Christopher A. Robinson, the special agent in charge of the ATF Miami field division, said they will continue working with Miami Gardens police to fight gang activity.
“We stand with Miami Gardens police and their fight against violent crime and those who would poison our communities,” Robinson said.
Just in May, a murder victim turned up near a canal. There was a shooting in the area of Northwest 202 Terrace and 33 Avenue and shooters fired at each other in the area of Northwest 196th Street and 42nd Avenue.
Angela Lewis told Local 10 News that her son was not in a gang and was a father of two.
The FBI took the lead in the investigation of the police-involved shooting. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was also involved.