MIAMI, Florida — A shootout erupted Thursday in a notoriously crime-ridden section of Miami as a team of heavily armed law enforcement agents tried to serve a warrant, leaving two officers and a suspect dead, authorities said.
Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus said the first officer, 21-year veteran Roger Castillo, had been shot once and died at the scene. The second officer, 23-year veteran Amanda Haworth, was taken to a hospital and died later from several gunshot wounds, Loftus said.
cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });
console.log("catid body is "+catID);if(catID==120){document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://player.anyclip.com/anyclip-widget/lre-widget/prod/v1/src/lre.js'; script.setAttribute('pubname','jpostcom'); script.setAttribute('widgetname','0011r00001lcD1i_12258'); document.getElementsByClassName('divAnyClip')[0].appendChild(script);}else if(catID!=69 && catID!=2){ document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none"; var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://static.vidazoo.com/basev/vwpt.js'; script.setAttribute('data-widget-id','60fd6becf6393400049e6535'); document.getElementsByClassName('divVidazoo')[0].appendChild(script); }Loftus said officers killed the suspect, 22-year-old Johnny Simms, who had been armed with a handgun.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said a squad of Miami-Dade police officers — who are part of the career criminal unit of the warrants division — was serving a homicide warrant in the city's impoverished Liberty City neighborhood. Loftus said officers knew Simms was inside the home — a duplex with bars on the windows — and told him to come out.
"This unit is very well-trained, very well-armed, and highly protects itself," said Alvarez, a former police chief. "So they know what they're doing. It was just a tragic incident that we see here too often in Miami-Dade, of a violent suspect who could care less."
All the officers were wearing body armor and had clear police identification on them, Loftus said.