Community reacts after man killed during altercation with FDLE agent in southwest Miami-Dade

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Residents of a southwest Miami-Dade community gave their thoughts after authorities said a man was fatally shot Thursday morning during an altercation with an on-duty Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent.

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Deputies with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said the shooting happened around 9:10 a.m. in the area of the 15700 block of Southwest 140th Street.

Investigators said the FDLE agent was inside his vehicle when a man standing in the street approached and began striking the vehicle’s window.

They said the agent got out of his car, and an altercation began. Video obtained by Local 10 News shows a man wearing red, who appears to have a gun in his right hand, being body-slammed onto the pavement by a man wearing black shorts.

Investigators said the man who was body-slammed was the FDLE agent.

The video shows the two men continuing to struggle before the man who tackled the agent gets on top of him. A gunshot is then heard.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews responded and pronounced the man dead at the scene, according to investigators.

They said the FDLE agent was taken to a hospital. The agency said he was placed on administrative leave, as is standard procedure following an officer-involved shooting.

Neighbors told Local 10 that they heard the two men arguing over a parking situation before hearing a single gunshot being fired.

“I heard some commotion,” said Julyana Adam, who was in the area when she heard that “a single gunshot went off.”

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“By the time we all made it downstairs, there was somebody laying on the floor,” she added. “(It’s) pretty devastating to find out there was pleading of ‘I just wanna get home.’ He was five steps away from being home and didn’t make it in.”

The man’s death was especially difficult for those who knew him.

His roommate and close friend of five years, Mauricio Salinas, described him as a good person. The man who was killed has not yet been identified by investigators.

“He was nice a good person,” Salinas said. “I don’t think he deserved what happened to him.“

Salinas said he would often help calm his friend when he became angry and said his friend had been working to improve himself.

“I don’t know why the altercation happened. All I know is (when) I came out, he was already gone,” he said. “I think he was a person that I was hoping he was looking for redemption do better than he was yesterday.”

Deputies spent much of Thursday investigating the area. A body covered by a tarp could be seen in the roadway as investigators processed the scene.

A nearby school, Jorge Mas Canosa Middle School, was temporarily placed on lockdown because of what Miami-Dade County Public Schools described as “non-school related police activity in the area.” The lockdown was later lifted.

Authorities have not released additional details about what led to the confrontation.

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The investigation remains ongoing.