Several Miami-Dade schools locked down as manhunt for armed suspect continues
Hundreds of Fla. are searching for suspect Kevin Wehner, 30. Wehner allegedly shot 4 Miami-Dade officers after being pulled over speeding, and is believed to be armed with an AK-47.
SWAT on the scene; all area resources mobilized
By Luisa Yanez
The Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. A least two Miami-Dade police officers were shot late Thursday morning when they stoppped a man speeding through a Southwest Miami-Dade County neighborhood. Scores of police and law enforcement helicopters rapidly began scouring the suburban neighborhood for a lone suspect as local streets and nearby highway exits were shut down to prevent his escape.
Police are looking for a suspect named Kevin Wehner, 30, a black male, said Miami-Dade police spokesman Linda O'Brien.
The shooter, believed to be armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, fled the scene in a white Honda Accord, license tag W10 4TFD, police said.
A car matching that description, its windshield shattered, was found abandoned along a fence lining the bank of a canal at Southwest 129th Avenue and 203rd Street in Cutler Bay.
Law enforcement helicopters hovered over a nearby wooded area bordering the canal. Scores of police in cars and on foot scoured the neighborhood of the shooting.
Police also set up a security perimeter around the neighborhood at Southwest 127th Avenue between 200th and about 208th streets. Officers were wearing combat helmets and fatigues, sitting on the trunks of police cars as they patrolled the neighborhood.
Police broadcast this description of the shooter: 29 years old, white, male, chubby with a small beard.
One police officer was seen being loaded into a rescue helicopter. The officer was taken to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. One of those injured was a female officer.
There were unconfirmed reports that two other officers were also injured, one of them superficially.
Every exit of the turnpike extension in South Miami-Dade south of Southwest 152nd Street was closed immediately after the shooting. Northbound lanes have since been opened, but southbound lanes remained shut down and traffic was at a standstill.
At 12:20 p.m., aerial footage broadcast by WFOR-CBS 4, The Miami Herald's news partner, showed a SWAT team surrounding a house on Southwest 129th Avenue and 203rd Street. The heavily armed officers entered the house and then left.
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Posted by: kwflatbed
Massive manhunt for armed suspect continues; "It is a very sad day for Dade County," said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez
CULTLER BAY, Fla. A gunman killed a police officer and injured three others during a traffic stop Thursday, triggering a manhunt in a suburban Miami neighborhood, officials said.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez confirmed that one of the officers died. All four had been brought to hospitals, but authorities refused to release further information on them because they were trying to notify their families.
The officers were conducting burglary surveillance when they stopped the man because he was driving a car erratically, said Linda O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. The man opened fire with a high-powered weapon and fled. It was not immediately clear if the officers returned fire.
TV footage showed several officers briefly surrounding a house, guns drawn, before moving on. Others swept through a grassy area on foot and picked through a garbage truck.
Authorities were looking for 30-year-old Kevin Wehner, last seen driving a white Honda Accord, O'Brien said. There was a chance another man also was involved.
Investigators believed they had recovered a vehicle and a gun used in the shooting, O'Brien said.
No other details were immediately available.
Cutler Bay is a suburb southwest of downtown Miami. Several schools were locked down due to the search.
Two other officers were shot separately last month in neighboring Broward County. One was killed, the other badly injured.
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Posted by: OCKS
That is every cops nightmare, do a car stop and get met by a AK-47. Even good tactics probably wouldn't help. God Bless.
Posted by: PBC FL Cop
officer shot dead, 3 wounded in SW Dade
Posted on Thu, Sep. 13, 2007
BY DAVID OVALLE, SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, LUISA YANEZ AND ANDRES VIGLUCCI
It began with a routine burglary detail in South Miami-Dade's suburbs: Police officers, sent out to stem a rash of break-ins, spot a suspect they'd been eyeing and follow his car to a house in a quiet development.
What happened next was anything but routine: one Miami-Dade officer shot dead; three wounded; a massive manhunt across South Florida; a dangerous killer on the run.
''This is a very sad day for us. We need to get this guy,'' said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said of the suspect, identified as Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, at an emotional press conference Thursday night.
As Thursday's confounding events unfolded amid anger, grief and confusion -- including several hours police spent chasing the wrong man -- homicide detectives began piecing together how the shooter managed to ambush four officers and get away.
Some crucial details remain unclear, but based on interviews and preliminary forensic analysis, several law enforcement officials gave this account:
Two officers spotted the suspect, driving an old Honda Accord, near a housing development at Southwest 280th Street and 143rd Court. After first misleading cops, police say, his girlfriend identified LaBeet.
The officers, Jose Somohano and Christopher Carlin, tried to stop LaBeet, but he took off, parked and ran into a house -- it's not certain whether he lived there. The officers called for backup and, when a woman who turned out to be LaBeet's girlfriend arrived at the home in a car, approached the home to question the suspect.
From inside the house, police say, LaBeet opened fire through a window with an assault rifle, possibly an AK-47, striking officer Somohano, 37, in the neck and killing him.
LaBeet then ran out of the house and, detectives believe, shot Somohano again, then bolted for his car, firing wildly at other officers now arriving on the scene. The officers returned fire, shattering the car's windshield, but missed the suspect.
''That man didn't hesitate to shoot,'' Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said at an evening news conference.
Officer Jody Wright, 31, was shot in the leg, her knee shattered. She yelled on her radio that officers were down and needed help. Bullets grazed the two other injured officers, Carlin, 34, and Tomas Tundidor, 37.
Police say LaBeet sped away, with officers in pursuit. He crashed into a fence along the Black Creek Canal at Southwest 129th Avenue and 203rd Street, jumped out of the car -- apparently ditching his weapon, which police recovered -- and disappeared on foot.
Afraid to leave Somohano, officers picked him up and drove him out of the development in a squad car. Paramedics pronounced the officer dead.
''We had to extract him because we didn't know if there were other assailants in the area,'' said Maj. Carlos Garcia, who oversees the Cutler Ridge police district.
A teen who lives across the street from where at least one of the officers was shot gave The Miami Herald an account of the incident that meshes with initial police conclusions.
The 15-year-old said she had run outside after her grandmother said police were pointing a gun at a woman. She said she saw a car out front, with the driver's side door standing open. A woman was in the passenger seat and two children were in the back.
She said the woman got out and grabbed the children and ran into the house right before the shooting started.
'I heard somebody say, `Daddy, no,' like a little girl,'' she said. ``That's when they started shooting.''
The shooting came from inside the house across the street, she said. As soon as she heard the shots, she ran inside her own house and looked out her front window.
''I saw the police officer laying on the ground,'' she said. ``I think he shot out the window because there were holes in the window where the police officer was laying.''
Within minutes, police began swarming the scene and the surrounding neighborhood. In searching one house, they stumbled upon an indoor marijuana farm.
Streets and local highway exits were closed to seal off escape routes, causing nightmarish traffic backups and keeping residents from their homes into the night. Cars were stopped and trunks searched.
The search later extended to central Broward County, where police believed the suspect -- whose mother lives in Margate -- might head. Police erected then dismantled a cordon around that neighborhood but remained stationed outside the house into the night.
For hours, however, police misidentified the suspect. The first bulletin issued, shortly before noon, described a heavyset white male. Soon afterwards, police released an auto tag number that belonged to a man whom they mistakenly believed owned the Honda the shooter drove. Then they released another erroneous identification: Kevin Wehner, 30, this time with a photograph.
At about 4 p.m., police identified LaBeet, 25, as the correct suspect. They said a second photograph they had released earlier, but identified as Wehner's, was in fact LaBeet's.
In another apparently erroneous lead, Miami-Dade police at about 4 p.m. reported a sighting of LaBeet behind the wheel of a black Pontiac Vibe accompanied by a woman and two children in Broward County. The auto was soon located, empty, at a shopping mall parking lot in Oakland Park, where it was roped off with yellow tape. But after locating the occupants, police then said the man driving the car was not LaBeet. Police later towed the car away.
Miami-Dade Police Cdr. Linda O'Brien said Wehner was not involved and was in his home in Jacksonville on Thursday.
''It's a case of mistaken identity,'' John Wehner, Kevin Wehner's uncle in New York, told The Miami Herald.
He said his nephew contacted Jacksonville police Thursday afternoon to tell them of the mixup. The uncle said his nephew had recently reported to authorities that his wallet, containing his driver's license, had been stolen.
''It appears we have been misled about [the suspect's] initial identity,'' O'Brien said. She said she was glad Wehner stepped forward quickly. ``It appears LaBeet had obtained his ID.''
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez later blamed the erroneous ID of the alleged shooter on LaBeet's girlfriend. LaBeet had been using Wehner's name, Alvarez said, and she gave police the assumed name. Alvarez said the unidentified woman was being held and could be charged.
''That hampered our investigation. To what extent, we don't know,'' Alvarez, a former police chief, said.
Authorities told The Herald LaBeet was wanted in Broward County on an aggravated assault charge. An arrest warrant had been issued by police.
Alvarez confirmed the unidentified officer's death shortly before 2 p.m.
John Rivera, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said union officials visited with the slain officer's family at their home.
''They're not doing good. It's very somber, but they're getting a lot of support, even from neighbors,'' he said.
Police set up a security perimeter around the neighborhood at Southwest 127th Avenue between 200th and about 208th streets. Officers were wearing combat helmets and fatigues, sitting on the trunks of police cars as they patrolled the neighborhood.
Late Thursday, residents were still not being allowed into the neighborhood.
Several area public and private schools were locked down for most of the day, but few public-school students were on campus because it was a teacher planning day. The public schools were shut down at 3:15 p.m. Schools will open as scheduled Friday.
Miami Herald staff writers Andres Amerikaner, Erika Beras, Michael Vasquez, Kathleen McGrory, Jennifer Mooney Piedra, Manny Garcia, Amy Driscoll and Rebecca Dellagloria contributed to this report.
Posted by: kwflatbed
Suspected cop killer Shawn Labeet killed in Pembroke Pines
By Madeline Barσ Diaz, Sofia Santana and Ruth Morris | Sun-Sentinel.com
Shawn Labeet, suspected of killing one Miami-Dade police officer and wounding three others Thursday morning, was shot and killed by police after shortly before midnight after a massive hunt that ended in Broward County, Miami-Dade police said.
Labeet, 25, was found at an apartment complex at 305 Southwest 85th Ave in Pembroke Pines. After an exchange of gunfire, Labeet was shot and killed. He was found in possession of an extra clip of ammunition and body armor.
Officer Jose Somohano, 37, who had been with the department since 2003, became the second South Florida officer in the past two months killed on duty. He leaves a wife and two young children.
On Aug. 10, a gunman fatally shot Broward Sheriff's deputy Christopher Reyka in Pompano Beach while he looked for stolen vehicles. Earlier that week, another Broward deputy, Maury Hernandez, was shot in the head during a traffic stop. He remains hospitalized. A suspect in Hernandez's shooting is in jail, but Reyka's killer has not been caught.
Labeet has had recent addresses in Margate, North Lauderdale and Pompano Beach.
For much of the afternoon, the hunt for Labeet centered on Broward. Miami-Dade police announced late Thursday that a $200,000 reward was being offered to anyone leading them to Labeet.
Police found a Pontiac Vibe authorities thought Labeet was driving about 4:45 p.m. in front of Target at the Coral Ridge Mall, at North Federal Highway and Oakland Park Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Instead of Labeet, police found that his brother had been behind the wheel, accompanied by a woman and two children, none of whom police suspect in the south Miami-Dade shootings, officials said.
Authorities for several hours blocked off a Margate neighborhood that state records show is the home of one of Labeet's relatives. They also blocked off an industrial area of Deerfield Beach, near Interstate 95. Both areas were reopened by 5:30 p.m.
In Margate, neighbors were stunned and saddened that another South Florida police officer had been fatally wounded.
"It's terrible. We just had Reyka die and Hernandez shot," said Tim Drufke, 47. "It really makes you wonder what's going to happen in this area. It's getting out of hand. It's very close to home."
According to Miami-Dade spokeswoman Linda O'Brien, officers working a burglary surveillance detail late Thursday morning at an apartment complex near Southwest 280th Street and 143rd Court in Miami-Dade, pulled over a white Honda that was driving "very erratically." When the car stopped, the man inside opened fire on the officers with a high-powered rifle, O'Brien said.
The shooter got back into the car and drove away. Police later found the car near Southwest 216th Street and 129th Avenue, police said.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, the county's former police director, said at an evening news conference that police found an AK-47 rifle in Labeet's car. He said, "Without any remorse, [Labeet] left them there to die and fled the scene."
Alvarez said authorities intend to charge Labeet with first-degree murder.
"By the grace of God we don't have four officers dead, because he certainly tried his best, firing multiple rounds at them," Alvarez said.
Emergency personnel treated Somohano at the scene and airlifted Officer Jody Wright, 31, to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center, where she underwent hours of surgery on her shattered leg Thursday evening. Officials transported Officers Tomas Tundidor, 37, who suffered a leg injury, and Christopher Carlin, 34, to Southwest Miami-Dade hospitals. The two male officers were later released.
Initially, police circulated a different suspect's name and picture, but after he reported to a police station in Jacksonville, they said they had made a mistake. Police corrected the name a few hours later.
Alvarez said Labeet's girlfriend, whom officers apprehended at the scene and brought to police headquarters, "purposely misled and delayed" the investigation by giving officers the wrong name for Labeet, who was using an assumed identity.
"In the initial stages of the investigation, that's crucial," Alvarez said. He said the woman, whose name police did not release, would likely face charges.
Labeet has an arrest record that includes trespassing and disorderly intoxication. At the time of the shooting, Broward authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest on aggravated assault charges.
Moments after the shooting, police locked down several nearby schools. Unsure whether the suspect was still in the area and traveling on foot, they asked residents to lock their doors and stay inside, and cleared news helicopters taping the scene overhead. Teams of police officers scanned waterways, combed bushes and even dumped the trash from a huge collection container, apparently to make sure the shooter was not in it.
"It's horrible," Alvarez said shortly after the shootings. "It's the worst possible feeling you can have to hear that not one, but four police officers have been shot."
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 54 officers have been shot and killed this year nationwide, compared with 34 that had been killed by the same time last year.
Gun control advocates say it has been easier for criminals to buy powerful firearms since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired two years ago. The 10-year ban prohibited the sale of semi-automatic weapons manufactured after September 1994, but lawmakers did not renew it.
In Florida and many other states, buyers can obtain guns through private sales without submitting to background checks. Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said even background checks on registered sales, through licensed vendors, do not always bring up disqualifying factors, such as mental illness.
"When you see more lethal firearms out on the street, and some are even concealed, it's absolutely more dangerous for police," Ladd said. "A lot of police are arming up because they're finding themselves outgunned by criminals."
"These guns are out there," O'Brien said.
Staff Writer Juan Ortega, Staff Researchers Barbara Hijek and William Lucey, and Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer Maya Bell contributed to this report.
2 men, 2 women charged with aiding suspected police killer
Authorities arrested four people Friday for aiding suspected cop killer
Shawn LaBeet, jail records show. Investigators believe LaBeet ran
from his car to their home and took refuge
2 men, 2 women charged with aiding suspected police killer
By DAVID OVALLE
The Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. Authorities arrested four people Friday for aiding suspected cop killer Shawn LaBeet, jail records show.
Alba Bello, 47; her son, Alain Gonzalez, 24; and Bello's boyfriend, Lazaro Guardiola, 35, have been charged with accessory after the fact for harboring LaBeet.
Investigators believe LaBeet ran from his car to their home at 12914 SW 202nd St. and took refuge until someone else picked him up.
They are being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. They were booked just after 11 a.m.
Authorities say on Thursday LaBeet -- a friend of Gonzalez -- killed Miami-Dade Officer Jose Somohano and wounded three others before escaping in his white Honda, which he later ditched.
Miami-Dade's media relations bureau did not immediately have details of their arrests.
LaBeet's girlfriend, Renee Dangelo, 26, has also been charged. Police say she gave detectives a false name for LeBeet, delaying the investigation.
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Posted by: kwflatbed
By Jamie Malernee and Brian Haas
The Sun-Sentinel
CUTLER BAY, Fla. Long before Shawn Labeet took the life of a Miami-Dade police officer, he stole a Jacksonville man's identity, used the alias to buy an arsenal of weapons, and disappeared into the South Florida landscape despite having an outstanding warrant on charges of shooting and injuring his girlfriend, officials said Friday.
Records show Labeet, 25, had been wanted for the past five years on charges of aggravated assault and battery with a firearm. On April 1, 2002, in North Lauderdale, Labeet became upset about marijuana missing from his house, according to a probable cause affidavit. He pulled a gun on another man and then turned it on his girlfriend's cousin, the report said.
The cousin grabbed the shotgun. The two scuffled and the gun went off twice. Labeet's girlfriend, Renee Dangelo, was hit in the left thigh, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office report, which said she declined to prosecute.
That girlfriend is the same 26-year-old woman who is in jail, charged with being an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, accused of giving officers the wrong name for Labeet during their investigation of Thursday's fatal police shooting. The couple has three children, ages 5, 1 and 3 months.
The alias Dangelo gave police Kevin Wehner, the same name as a 30-year-old Jacksonville construction worker and father of three caused confusion, with officials initially publicizing the wrong name and photograph for the suspect.
"The real Kevin Wehner, who was home Thursday when he heard reports that he was a wanted cop killer, called police and told authorities his identity had been stolen. Wehner could not be reached for comment Friday.
According to the uncle of the real Kevin Wehner, Wehner's wallet was stolen four years ago while he was vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Labeet is from. Wehner reported the missing wallet to authorities there, and then identity theft to Florida police when he began getting notices in the mail about cars he never bought, said his uncle, John Wehner of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Between December 2005 and March 2006, Labeet bought nine guns, six assault rifles and three pistols, under the alias, said Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Linda O'Brien.
Court records show a Kevin Wehner was issued several driving citations in South Florida between 2003 and 2007. But Kevin Wehner's uncle said, "He's never lived in Miami."
If Labeet was using Wehner's name, it could help explain why Labeet was never arrested on his outstanding warrant for shooting his girlfriend.
Keyla Concepcion, spokeswoman for the Broward Sheriff's Office, said a warrant for Labeet's arrest was activated on Oct. 9, 2002, but a fugitive task force didn't go to Labeet's presumed home in North Lauderdale until April 24, 2003. By then, neighbors said Labeet had moved. The fugitive squad tried Labeet's relatives' home in Margate and was told he didn't live there either.
In July 2006, the Sheriff's Office ran Labeet's information against several databases to see if he had gotten in trouble, had taken out a new credit card or had registered an address.
"Nothing came back," Concepcion said.
That was the last action the Sheriff's Office took, though Concepcion said the warrant was still active and would have sent up red flags if he had so much as gotten pulled over by a police officer.
She said that the agency has nearly 220,000 active warrants, making it unrealistic to devote the fugitive squad to each warrant with the same vigor.
"We make efforts to find everybody," Concepcion said. "But that's a huge caseload. Had we had any new information on him we would have been able to go out and serve the warrant. But we made every attempt we could to find a good address for him."
The case of mistaken identity did not hamper Thursday's police investigation for long. Officers found Labeet and shot him dead in Pembroke Pines.
John Wehner said his nephew remains shaken by the idea that, even for a brief time, he was considered a murderer. He is worried about what else Labeet did in his name and is concerned about finding a lawyer to help clear his reputation.
"He's devastated. He's scared to come outside."
William Speier said the bigger tragedy is that a police officer had to die before law enforcement committed big resources to hunt Labeet down and sort out the identity theft. Records show Speier is the man Labeet pointed a gun at and scuffled with in 2002 before Dangelo was shot. Dangelo might have forgiven her boyfriend for the shooting, but Speier her cousin, who did not approve of Labeet did not.
He said Friday that authorities should have tried harder, sooner.
"Someone out of the 'hood, they don't care if they got shot. Now it takes one of their own to be dead for them to do something," he said. "The man was crazy."
Staff Researcher William Lucey and Staff Writer Sofia Santana contributed to this report.
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