Cops Search for Suspect After Shootout in Southwest Miami-Dade
Two suspects in custody, a third on the run after hotel robbery: Police
Police searched a South Miami Heights neighborhood Friday for a robbery suspect. Miami-Dade Police spokesman Det. Alvaro Zabaleta and residents Jesse Walker and Patricia Smith discuss what happened.
Police searched a South Miami Heights neighborhood Friday for the third of three men police say robbed a nearby business.
The search began after midnight after a robbery at the Quality Inn Hotel at 14501 South Dixie Highway, Miami-Dade Police said.
Police say the three men escaped in a white van, which was later stopped. The suspects got out, firing at detectives, who returned fire, authorities said. No one was injured, and the suspects fled on foot.
"Subjects exit and open fire on detectives. Detectives were able to fire back," said police spokesman Det. Alvaro Zabaleta.
Officers took two of the men into custody before sunrise, along with a handgun and an assault rifle. They used dogs to help track them down as well as a helicopter with a spotlight circling for several hours overhead.
The two men, Philbrine Bell, 24, and Xavier D. Johnson, 22, were later arrested and each face a charge of attempted murder on a police officer.
"It's a tight perimeter," said Zabaleta, who said police were searching between Southwest 187th Street and Southwest 190th Street and Southwest 112th Avenue and Southwest 114th Avenue.
Zabaleta said no one was injured during the robbery. Officers were still examining the hotel early Friday where crime scene tape hung in the front lobby.
Pastor Rufus Troup canceled his church's Solid Rock Summer Camp on Southwest 192nd Street and Southwest 112th Avenue, just inside the police perimeter. "It's not just this area, it's all over Dade," Pastor Troup said of the crime.
"Like a war, an all-out war. They set up over there. There were so many cars. I have never seen so many cars, dogs, police, in my life," said neighbor Jesse Walker.
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