MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – A man is facing federal charges after authorities say he shot at federal agents who were surveilling a home in Miami Gardens as part of a drug trafficking investigation.
According to a criminal complaint, agents working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were surveilling the home last Thursday in the area of Northwest 161st Street and 27th Place, along with FBI agents, U.S. Marshals and officers and detectives from the Miami Gardens Police Department.
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Law enforcement officials were divided up into multiple vehicles, with each vehicle consisting of more than one person inside.
According to the complaint, law enforcement spotted a group of people coming out of the home, including a 17-year-old girl and three men, including Philip Samuel Marsh.
Officers said they spotted them entering a gray Nissan, at which time authorities began to follow it.
According to the complaint, the Nissan eventually turned back to return to the home, and as it was nearing the house, an ATF federal agent and a Miami Gardens detective, deputized as an ATF task force officer, were directly behind the vehicle in a silver Chrysler minivan.
Authorities said a law enforcement official in another vehicle then spotted a man who had been sitting in the backseat of the Nissan sticking his torso out of the car, sitting on the windowsill and pointing what appeared to be a gun at the Chrysler.
The same official then saw a muzzle flash coming from the gun as the Chrysler was being shot at, the complaint alleged.
According to the complaint, law enforcement returned fire as the Nissan fled from them.
Authorities said the driver of the Nissan eventually returned to the home they were initially surveilling, crashing into a fence separating the front and back yards on one side of the house.
“The Nissan then continued around the back of the house and attempted to exit the backyard of the residence, ultimately becoming immobilized between the corner of the residence and a chain link fence,” the complaint read.
Authorities said four people, including Marsh were detained for questioning.
As the group was being detained, another man, identified by relatives as 27-year-old Daniel Lewis, emerged from the back of the home and appeared to fire a gun at agents in the backyard, authorities said.
Agents returned fire and Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene.
Local 10 News spoke with his mother last week, who denied that he shot at law enforcement.
“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.”
According to the complaint, Marsh told detectives in an interview the next day that he believed the car he was in was being followed and that the people inside the vehicles that were following them belonged to people in the area who intended to harm him and the others in his vehicle.
He admitted to firing a single shot to intimidate the people inside the other vehicles, authorities said.
According to the complaint, Marsh initially said he fired one shot into the sky as a “warning shot,” but later said the bullet could have struck the hood or bumper of the Chrysler.
Marsh is charged with forcible assault of a federal officer or person assisting a federal officer, with a deadly and dangerous weapon, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.