MIAMI — Another Miami-Dade mass shooting and a possibly connected car crash killed three people and sent five others to the hospital with gunshot wounds, Miami-Dade police said Sunday morning.
The woman shot dead was a Florida Department of Corrections officer. Two men, who might have been shot, died when their red Toyota Camry smashed into a wall of Miami Dade College's Kendall campus while leaving the scene of the shooting.
Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said a gun was found in the crashed car, but the actual relationship to the shooting remains under investigation.
While speaking with media outside crime scene tape near Southwest 107th Street and 109th Court, Ramirez said people were leaving a graduation party in a strip mall around 2 a.m. when the shooters rolled up and began firing. He said investigators were looking for a dark car, possibly a Chevrolet Malibu, and a white Toyota Camry.
Social media advertisements put the party at the Hookah Inn, 10549 SW 109th Ct.
This occurred in Miami-Dade commissioner Raquel Regalado's district and, Sunday morning, she issued a statement that ended, "We need to do more to keep our young people safe, including requiring events to hire off-duty police and expanding ShotSpotter to more areas, something I'm committed to."
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said: "I'm fully committed to making sure Miami-Dade Police Department has all the resources it needs to end this cycle of gun violence and prevent more tragedy by getting violent criminals off the street. And we will be getting youth off the streets and creating alternate pathways for the highest-risk young people."
On Tuesday, Miami-Dade commissioners are slated for a committee vote on Levine Cava's $8 million "Peace and Prosperity" plan to boost youth programs and surveillance efforts through 2022 as a way to reduce gun violence.
Coming a week after a Memorial Day Weekend drenched in bullets and death, most notably the attack at the El Mula Banquet Hall in Northwest Miami-Dade's Country Club of Miami area that killed three people and injured 20, a reporter asked Ramirez if Miami-Dade is safe.
"The question you've got to ask is 'Is America safe?" Ramirez said. "This type of violence, it's not like it's only happening in Miami-Dade County. This plague of gun violence is happening throughout our country, throughout our youth, throughout our communities.
"This is the new pandemic."
