Florida: Security Guard Shot, Returns Fire in North Miami

North Miami, Florida

From the March 31, 2008 Miami Herald:

A shooting outside a North Miami-Dade shopping plaza Sunday morning left a security guard wounded, a man dead and another on the run, Miami-Dade police said.

The wild scene played out at around 9 a.m. as early-morning shoppers began arriving at the center anchored by a Winn-Dixie supermarket at Northwest Seventh Avenue and 111th Street.

It's unclear yet what sparked the incident, but it may have been a confrontation between two young men and the guard, and not an attempted robbery.

''There are a lot of customers who did see what happened and we are interviewing them as well,'' said Robert Williams, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police Department.

An aunt of the dead man said the victim was 19 years old, according to Miami Herald news partner CBS4. She said she did not believe her nephew was involved in a crime.

''I don't know what happened in the parking lot, what went on,'' said Antoinette Cobb, who told the station she was the dead man's aunt. ``I want to know what happened. . . . The police are not giving me any information.''

Witnesses said the security guard appeared to be making his rounds at the center in a golf cart when he was approached by the men.

There was a confrontation that escalated. Investigators said one of the men pulled a gun and shot the guard in the upper chest. The guard returned fire, hitting one of the men, who fell in the parking lot.

The second man took off into a neighborhood just northeast of the shopping center.

The security guard along with the other man were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Hospital, Williams said. The wounded man was declared dead at the hospital. His name has not been released.

SHOT IN TORSO

The security guard, who was shot in the upper torso, was undergoing surgery. He also had not been identified Sunday night.

''Right now we do not have a motive,'' Williams said, adding that homicide investigators are still conducting interviews.

Detectives need to talk to the hospitalized security guard for a clear picture of what sparked the violence.

''We do not know yet if robbery was the motive. We want to make absolutely sure that that was the motive for this so we need to talk to that security guard to get a statement from him,'' Williams said.