by Patrick H. Moore
It began at about 6:30 p.m. Friday when police received word that shots had been fired in a 95-unit Hialeah apartment building north of Miami. This was the beginning. By the time the SWAT team finally stormed the building at around 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning after an eight-hour standoff, and fatally shot the gunman in a hail of gunfire, he had shot and killed six innocent victims.
Christine Armario of the Associated Press has the story:
Sgt. Eddie Rodriguez said that when police arrived, they discovered an active shooter situation:
“He’s inside the building, moving from floor to floor. Eventually he barricades himself in an apartment.”
The SWAT team made every attempt to establish communication with the shooter and managed to talk to him briefly from the other side of the door of an apartment unit where he was holding two hostages.
But Rodriguez said the talks eventually “just fell apart.” Officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman in an exchange of gunfire.
“They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages,” Rodriguez said. Both hostages survived. Rodriguez said he didn’t have any information on how long negotiations lasted.
Two victims — one male and one female — were shot to death in the hallway in front of one unit. Three more victims, one male and two females, were found shot and killed in another apartment on a different floor. The final victim was a man who had been ushering his children into an apartment across the street. Sgt. Rodriguez said it was unclear whether the gunman took aim at the man from an upper-level balcony, or if he had caught a stray bullet.
Witness Zulima Niebles stated that her sister Merly Sophia Niebles, her sister’s husband, and her sister’s daughter Priscila Perez, 16, were among those shot and killed. Marcela Chavarri, director of the American Christian School, said Priscila Perez was about to enter her senior year at the school. “She was a lovely girl,” Chavarri said through tears. “She was always happy and helping her classmates.”
A photograph revealed the teenage girl in a red graduation gown. Another photo was of her mother, Merly Sophia Niebles, in a white dress, wearing pearls.
Zulima Niebles’ husband, Agustin Hernandez, quietly began moving the deceased family’s belongings out of the apartment building and into his car on Saturday.
Sgt. Rodriguez stated that the police were still investigating the identity of the shooter.
Neighbor Fabian Valdes, who lives across the street from the site of the standoff, said he heard shots fired and then looked out his window and saw a man lying on the floor, outside the front lobby. He was on his back and had his arms and legs outstretched.
Valdes said he was in shock. “It’s something you never expect,” he said.
The apartment building where the standoff occurred is an aging beige five-story building with an open terrace in the middle. The apartment where neighbors said the shooting started was charred, and the door and ceiling immediately outside was burned black.
Hialeah is a suburb of about 230,000 residents, 75 per cent of whom are Cuban or Cuban-American.
Police are calling this one of the deadliest mass shootings in South Florida history. There is still no explanation as to what made the gunman snap.