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The first call came to police just after rush hour, around 7 p.m. — two 16-year-olds had been gunned down on a busy Allapattah corner, killing one and wounding the other. Just two hours later, as crime scene technicians were still working in the taped-off murder site, another frantic call came from a housing complex less than a mile and half east, in Overtown. Police arrived to find a 10-year-old boy shot in the head and a young girl grazed.
So far, police have no idea if the violent outbursts were linked. “It’s crazy and sad,” Det. Freddie Burden, a Miami Poilce Department spokesperson, tells New Times. “Everything was so calm yesterday, and then this all happened at once.”
The first gunfire broke out around 7 p.m. yesterday at the bustling corner of NW 20th Avenue and 19th Terrace in Allapattah, near a Popeyes and a car dealership.
Two 16-year-olds were hit in that shooting; Burden says police are still notifying family members and won’t release any names yet this morning. One of the two teens died shortly after the shooting.
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The next burst of violence happened around 9 p.m., when police were called to 1975 NW Fourth Ct., a complex of pastel-painted housing in Overtown. There, they found a 10-year-old shot in the head. Though police initially reported the boy had died at the scene, they now say he was in critical condition when rushed to the Ryder Trauma Center. A girl hit by the same gunfire was expected to recover.
Burden says police have no motives in either shooting yet and are trying to determine if they’re linked.
“I want to say yeah, they’re not connected, but I was speaking to our detectives this morning, and we really can’t say that for certain yet,” Burden says.
Anyone with info about either shooting should call the Miami Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 305-603-6350.
