MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A mother wounded her teenage daughter on Friday night in Miami-Dade County’s Pinewood neighborhood during what appeared to be both a misunderstanding and an accidental shooting, police said.
According to Detective Andre D. Martin, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police Department, police officers responded to “a dispute” shortly after 10:10 p.m., in the area of a McDonald’s fast food restaurant, along Northwest Seventh Avenue, near 91 Street.
“A firearm was accidentally discharged by an adult female,” Martin wrote.
According to an arrest report in the case, before the shooting, Melissa Valbrum threatened to shoot a Lyft driver and his three passengers with a gun because she thought one of them had pointed at her. The person who pointed told police that she meant to show two others that the Lyft car had arrived.
According to the police report, Valbrum told police officers she had the gun on her waistband and it accidentally fell causing it to discharge and accidentally strike her 15-year-old daughter. Police officers reported surveillance video and phone video recordings show Valbrum “with a firearm in her hand” and knocking on the Lyft driver’s rear passenger window.
The shooter’s daughter was wounded in the left shoulder and Miami-Dade fire rescue personnel took her to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. According to Martin, the teenage girl’s condition was stable.
Inmate records show Miami-Dade correctional deputies booked Valbrum on Saturday morning at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. She was facing four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of battery, and one count of inflicting personal injury or culpable negligence.
Detectives asked anyone with information about this or other cases to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Joyce Grace Ortega contributed to this report.