Swedish Student Shot in Wynwood During Attempted Robbery

Frank Hammar, a student originally from Sweden, expected to graduate from the Miami Ad School next week. His parents were in town, and the family went out to eat at the fashionable Wynwood Diner. After finishing around 11:30 p.m., Hammar separated from his family and headed back to the school’s Wynwood campus.

On the way, two men approached him, and one pulled out a pistol. They demanded his possessions and that he place his phone on the ground. Hammar complied. According to police, one man began patting Hammar down to look for more valuables. Hammar stepped back, and the other man shot him twice in the abdomen. 

“So, this has been a strange and horrible day for our family,” his brother Peter Hammar wrote on Facebook. “My brother Frank has been robbed and shot in Wynwood Miami last night, after dinner at a restaurant, when parting from my parents, heading back to school. Two bullets in his stomach, one passed right trough the body, the other stuck by the spine. He is now in recovery at St. [sic] Jackson Memorial hospital, mom and dad are there with him now.” 

His school confirmed the shooting. “We send best wishes and healing thoughts his way and look forward to seeing his smiling face back at the school soon,” the Miami Ad School’s statement reads. “This tragedy has not slowed him down, and he is determined to attend graduation and continue on to New York to fulfill his career dreams. We can’t wait to watch him grow and inspire the next generation of students over the coming years.”

According to Local 10, Hammar was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. He is expected to be released in about a week. 

The incident was originally reported in the Swedish media, a country where the firearm homicide rate in 2010 was only 1.47 per 100,000 residents. (In Miami, the rate was 23.7 as of 2011.)

But the shooting is certainly still shocking here as well. Less than 15 years ago, Wynwood was a warehouse district where few dared to wander late at night. Since then, it has completed its transition from a burgeoning arts district to an internationally recognized tourist destination complete with boutiques, foodie-approved restaurants, and craft-cocktail-slinging bars, all set in a candy-colored street-art-painted landscape.

However, crime still rears its head in the area. In a span of two weeks last summer, two people were fatally shot in or around Wynwood. In late June 2015, 29-year-old Monique Manley was shot in the back in the area of NE 19th Street and Second Court, which is just outside of the Wynwood Business Improvement District. A few weeks later, 41-year-old Thomas Quass was shot and killed while walking to his car on NW 26th Street.