Spring break arrived in South Beach this weekend with all the usual hallmarks: Packed beaches full of drunken 20-somethings, shoulder-to-shoulder pedestrians on Ocean Drive, lines around the block for Washington Avenue nightclubs. And, early this morning, the year's first shootout near Ocean Drive.
Two men were wounded in a gun battle just off the iconic street, a Miami Beach Police spokesperson tells New Times. One man with traumatic wounds to the stomach was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The call came into police at 12:30 a.m., says Det. Vivian Thayer, a MBPD spokesperson, about gunfire near Ocean Drive.
The victim with gunshot wounds to the stomach flagged down officers on Seventh Street and described the car carrying the gunman before being transported to the hospital.
Police spotted the vehicle moments later near the Miami Beach Convention Center. They stopped the car and found a man inside with injuries to his hand. That victim was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, Thayer says.
So far police haven't determined a motive for the crime. "At this point it is unknown if they knew each other," Thayer says.
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