It’s Wednesday, July 20th - and NBC 6 has the top stories for the day.
No. 1 - An Uber driver was attacked and forced out of their own vehicle during a carjacking in Miami Gardens Tuesday morning, officials said.
Miami Gardens Police said the incident took place just after 4 a.m. in the 1400 block of Northwest 199th Street. The white Toyota Corolla was later found abandoned in Miramar, where officers searched it at the scene near the 6100 block of Southwest 24th Street. Footage showed officers approaching the car with weapons drawn. Police did not say if the Uber driver, who was not identified, was injured.
No. 2 - Jurors heard riveting testimony Tuesday morning from student survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
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Christopher McKenna testified that he had been in English class and had gone to use the bathroom when he became the first to encounter Nikolas Cruz in a corridor just before the carnage began on Feb. 14, 2018. "He had a rifle in his hand,” said McKenna. “I was stunned for a minute and he said, 'get out of here, things are going to get bad.’” McKenna ran outside and that’s when he heard the gunfire coming from inside the school. Cruz’s lawyers have decided to wait until the state has presented all of its witnesses and evidence before giving opening statements and making its case for a life sentence. Jurors on Tuesday also got to see some of the silent security camera video that followed Cruz around the school.
No. 3 - Oscar Bonilla and his family spent Tuesday afternoon cleaning up and covering up a huge hole left in the wall outside their southwest Miami-Dade home after police say a driver crashed through it.
“It’s crazy, it’s shocking,” said Natalie Ramirez, his niece. “It’s like a freak accident. The stuff you don’t hear about every day.” Around 4:30 p.m., police say a dark-colored vehicle barreled through the barrier wall outside the home on SW 208th Street and SW 119th Court. “He was driving really fast and went right through the dining room,” Ramirez said. “My cousin was apparently having dinner or lunch at the dining room table which is the main room that was hit and some debris, not sure if it was concrete or if it was glass but it did hit him." Family members say that cousin is expected to be okay.
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No. 4 - In a 9-4 vote, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted in favor of a 1% millage rate cut Tuesday night.
The tax cut was voted on as a standalone item within Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s proposed budget. The mayor’s budget will be voted on as a whole in September. “I'm very grateful to the commission, they heard the message,” Levine Cava said. “They know that people are really suffering and that we need to give targeted relief. The 1% tax millage reduction is important. It shows a $25 million impact.” From 2020 to 2021, property values rose by about 10% in South Florida, and in Miami-Dade County, the taxable value of properties rose by $34 billion.
No. 5 - A 13-year-old hit by bullets in 2017 while asleep in his Little Havana home. A six-year-old fatally shot in the head by a masked gunman outside a birthday party she was attending last year. A few months later, three people killed and 20 others injured outside El Mula banquet hall.
They are some of the victims of gun violence in Miami-Dade County. Casings from those crime scenes and many others wound up at the Miami-Dade Police Forensic Services Bureau. NBC 6 Investigators were granted exclusive access. Shootings and homicides in the county are down by more than 33% compared to the same period last year. In the city of Miami, homicides are down by more than 25% through last week, according to records provided by the department. Click here for a report from NBC 6 investigator Tony Pipitone.
No. 6 - A Miami homeowner is calling out two mango thieves for trespassing after they were caught on camera helping themselves to his fruit.
Surveillance cameras captured a man jumping the fence of Wilfredo's home on the afternoon of July 7th, before he used a fruit picker to treat himself to some mangoes. On July 13th, a person who appears to be a different man with a different colored fruit picker also walked onto the property thinking it was a fruit free for all. Wilfredo said he's upset over what’s happening on his property. Click here to see the video in a report from NBC 6’s Laura Rodriguez.
