Douglas Betancourt sat quietly in a back row straight through a service in a Little Havana church yesterday evening. After the mass, Pastor Hector Silva and his worshipers gathered in the back to eat a late meal together. Betancourt, a 25-year-old transient, approached the group, whipped out a knife and…
Last August, Gibson Belizaire died under a hail of bullets in a grimy corner behind a Little Haiti body shop. Five cops — including two with troubling records of violence — blasted more than 130 rounds at the slight 21-year-old, killing him instantly after he’d run from a roadblock and…
Late last month, an Orlando-area judge ruled a major Florida drug law that’s been on the books since 2002 unconstitutional. Just last week, a Miami judge cited that ruling and overturned the conviction of 39 defendants. The rulings will have to work their way through the courts, but if a…
Vladimir Louissant, 25; Victoria Barkley, 26; Byron Kyler, 23; and Reginald Mitchell, 26, have been swiftly arrested after the murder of a Brinks armored truck guard yesterday afternoon outside the Calder Casino in Miami Gardens. The four suspects had fled the scene but were captured by the FBI’s South Florida…
Welcome to another bizarre Friday in the Magic City.Our story today involves a man in a wheelchair, a teenage shape-shifter, and a hella buff Mexican soap opera star.According to Miami Police, 16-year-old Gabriel Soto was riding the bus in Little Havana one Friday morning last month when he befriended a…
The orishas must be looking out for Carlos Valdes. We wrote this week about the local Santería priest’s legal battle with Kellyd Rodriguez — a man Valdes says has stalked his family for four years because he hates the Afro-Cuban religion.Yesterday Rodriguez, who was out on bond on the stalking…
Nevin Shapiro and his Coral Gables attorney, Maria Elena Perez, have the national media eating out of their hands these days. Shapiro is trying to bring down UM’s football program, and Perez — who’s not in jail — has helped him by making TV appearances. But the pair wasn’t all…
Two Miami Gardens men, Emerson Callum and Lavont Flanders Jr., have been arrested for drugging woman, engaging in forced sex acts with them, videotaping the acts, and then selling the videos. Both were similarly charged in 2007, but those claims were dropped just weeks ago…
We’re not sure what kind of grown man gets into a heated public argument with a random 12-year-old boy. We’re certainly not sure what kind of man then decides it’s a good idea to end the argument by pulling out a knife and stabbing the child. All we know is…
A 15-year-old boy from Coral Gables was shot and killed this morning in Boynton Beach after he stole a BMW with two friends and drove to Palm Beach County looking for homes to burglarize. The victim was accidentally shot by a friend who was playing with a gun in the…
Five teacup puppies, valued at a total of $4,100 and countless immeasurable units of adorableness, were snatched from the Puppy Dream pet store on Bird Road this weekend. The store’s cameras caught an unidentified woman committing the unspeakable crime of grand theft cute…
What police termed a “melee” erupted at South Beach’s Nikki Beach club early this morning, right in front of two off-duty Miami Beach cops. It left one man seriously injured with multiple stab wounds and the alleged attacker in police custody.”We haven’t determined a motive yet,” says Det. Juan Sanchez,…
At 3:30 this morning a Miami-Dade police shot and killed a 32-year-old woman after she started firing at officers, and shot one in the abdomen. Police responded to the scene after the woman was reported to have been making threats to herself and others. Update: The woman has been identified…
After giving conflicting statements about the Dolphin wide receiver’s bizarre April 22 stabbing, neither Brandon Marshall nor his wife Michi Nogomi-Marshall were convicted of a crime. But the release of documents yesterday leaves the door wide open for us nosy assholes to judge for ourselves what happened.According to reports obtained…
This week’s metro tells the incredible story of Spanish brothers Artemio and Álvaro López Tardón. According to prosecutors, the two ran a tri-continental drug shipping and money-laundering empire worth nearly $100 million per year.Yet with suspected ringleader Álvaro expected to plead not guilty this week, plenty of questions remain about…
For 13 years, Hialeah Gardens Police Officer Jorge Romero has been charged with patrolling his city for crime. This morning he found himself charged with an actual crime. FBI agents arrested him for alleged participation in a gang of thieves that terrorized cargo trucks and made off with valuable merchandise…
One night in mid-July, FBI agents swarmed three buildings around town simultaneously. It was one of the most incredible drug busts in Miami history — and hardly anyone noticed. At the time, we wrote about how a sculpted, tattooed Spaniard named Álvaro López Tardón and several associates stood accused of…
An early-morning beachgoer called Miami Beach Police shortly before 7 a.m. today to report a disturbing find: a body lying near the sea around 68th Street.The dead man had a gunshot wound to the head, Det. Juan Sanchez, a Miami Beach spokesman, tells Riptide. “Early indications are that it’s self-inflicted,”…
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will keep your drugs from you, apparently. Drug traffickers are increasingly using U.S. Mail and commercial carriers such as FedEx to ship drugs out of the country. In fact, in Florida alone the amount of cocaine and marijuana being intercepted…
Club 90 Degree first etched out a niche downtown as the Latin dance spot for the non-Calle Ocho crowd, with reggaeton, salsa, and merengue nights; lately, they’ve added hip-hop nights and had Power 96 broadcasting live from the floor on Saturdays.Last night, police say, at least two gunmen opened fire outside…
When three masked men armed with pistols entered the Luna Star Café in North Miami this past Saturday night, Ira Goldstein, a retired NYPD officer in his late 60s, intervened. Unfortunately Goldstein wound up in the hospital, and the robber made off with money from the cash register and valuables…
Police have made an arrest in the July 12 death of 2-year-old Dominicue Andrews. Police allege 23-year-old Lelier Perez Hernandez, the driver of a van charged with transporting children for the Jomiba Learning Center in Homestead, left Andrews in the vehicle, where the child eventually died due to the heat. Perez is…
