Free Republic

A man shot at a Miami-Dade County police officer trying to pull him over Tuesday, just hours after the agency buried another officer shot dead while on duty, an official said Wednesday. Eloy Saltare, 36, a former law enforcement officer for three different Florida agencies, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a firearm, said Miami-Dade police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta. The incident that landed Saltare in jail, with bruises all over his face, occurred about 10 p.m. when he argued with an ex-girlfriend near Miami Lakes Drive and Northwest 67th Avenue. The woman got in her car...

The International Association of Chiefs of Police urged Congress to pass `an effective assault weapons ban.' The International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a report Wednesday calling for a ban on assault weapons, arguing it will make officers safer by reducing the ``firepower available to criminals.'' The report hits home this week in South Florida, where law enforcement officials are still reeling from the murder of one of their own. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a former police officer and police director, gets angry when he talks about the fact that the gun used to kill Officer Jose Somohano was...

Miami-Dade Officer Jose Somohano was shot and killed with a Mak-90 assault rifle three years to the day after the federal law prohibiting the sale of such weapons expired. The International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a report at noon Wednesday calling for, among other things, a renewal of the ban, arguing that it helps keep police officers safe by reducing the ``firepower available to criminals.'' The report hits home for South Florida law enforcement officers, who have been facing an increasing number of these guns on the street since the ban expired. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a former...

MIAMI, Sept. 16 (AP) — Patrol officers here will have the option of carrying assault rifles as they try to combat the rise in the use of similar weapons by criminals, the city’s police chief said Sunday. The chief, John F. Timoney, approved the policy last week, before a Miami-Dade police officer was killed on Thursday in a shootout with a man wielding an assault rifle. “This is something we do not do with any relish,” Chief Timoney said. “We do this reluctantly.” The policy had been under review for about a year after officers began seeing an increase in...

(CBS4) DORAL Miami-Dade police have arrested four people in connection with the shootings of four Miami-Dade police officers, one of whom died.According to CBS4’s news partner The Miami Herald, three of those arrested are charged with aiding the suspected cop killer Shawn LaBeet.. Those suspects are Alba Bello, 47; her son, Alain Gonzalez, 24; and Bello’s boyfriend, Lazaro Guardiola, 35. The Herald reports all three have been charged with accessory after the fact for harboring LaBeet and are being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Basically, investigators believe, they helped hide LaBeet as he hid from police in...

Two Miami-Dade police officers have been injured in a so-called Tactical Operation gone bad in Cutler Bay. This is currently a developing story that began at SW 281st Street and 143rd Court in Cutler Bay where the two officers were possibly shot, reportedly with an assault rifle. Other officers may have also been hurt but only with minor injuries. At least one officer has been transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital. After the shooting, one suspect barricaded himself inside a building at 280th Street and Southwest 143RD Court. The other suspect took off in a White Honda Accord and began driving...

The man suspected of killing one Miami-Dade cop and wounding three others Thursday morning in a shootout in south Miami-Dade was cornered and shot dead in a Pembroke Pines apartment complex sometime before midnight, a law enforcement source told The Miami Herald. Miami-Dade police would not confirm the information about suspect Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, but scheduled a news conference for 12:30 a.m. at its headquarters in Doral. After receiving a tip Thursday evening that LaBeet was hiding in an apartment complex in Pembroke Pines, Miami-Dade sent its SWAT team, the source told The Herald.