MIAMI – Miami detectives are searching for the gunman who killed Robin Hernandez, a father of three from El Salvador. He was 35.
The gunman also wounded his friend David Pichinte, who remained hospitalized. Witnesses said Pichinte, 32, attempted to disarm the shooter, a masked stranger who walked by early Friday morning and approached them asking for something.
“Robin worked in construction and was always known as a good father and a good person. He never had any problems with anyone,” Nury Fernandez wrote in a GoFundMe page adding one of his kids was still in El Salvador and two lived in Miami.
The crime scene was near a dead-end street in the Little River area of Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Marlin Fernando, who witnessed the shooting, said it appeared the stranger signaled he wanted a drink. A relative said the stranger was asking for cash before he pulled out a gun.
Fernando said the shooter fired at Hernandez even after he had fallen to the ground. He thinks the gunman shot at Hernandez six times, but police or the medical examiner’s office had yet to confirm that. Surveillance Ring video from a neighboring building shows some of the witnesses running.
According to Officer Michael Vega, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, police officers responded shortly after 12:50 a.m., Friday, after Shot Spotter alerts at Northeast 77 Street at First Court. Hernandez was already dead.
Miami Fire Rescue personnel took Pichinte, to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.
According to Vega, his condition was critical. Detectives asked anyone with information about this or other cases to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477 to remain anonymous.
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Joyce Grace Ortega and Photojournalist Josh Salazar contributed to this report.