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Triple Stabbing Leads To Police Involved Shooting

MIAMI (CBS4) - A Richmond Heights man was shot and killed by a Miami-Dade police officer after he allegedly stabbed three of his own family members and tried to hit his teenage niece with a car.

"All of a sudden we just heard shots ringing out, there were about ten shots pop, pop, pop," said Sam Wilson.

Police were sent to a home on Monroe Street and 152nd Street around 5:15pm Sunday after a report came in that several people had been stabbed. When they arrived they found three adult women with stab wounds and a trail of blood in the street.

Neighbor Gregory Chism said he has known the family for 15 years and spoke to the man every day.

"Quiet, church-going guy, I think he was a preacher or something. He was a deacon or something in the church," said Chism.

Chism said the man stabbed his mother in the head inside the house and then went on to stab one of his sisters in the stomach.  She reportedly ran through the gate and down the block begging for help. Chism says the man also stabbed his other sister in her upper torso and she ran the other way for help.

Witnesses said the man then turned his rage on his niece and tried to hit her with his car. He missed and ended up slamming into the back of another car. He backed up to try and hit her again but she ran up onto the car's roof.  The girl was unhurt.

The man reportedly responsible for the attack attempted to escape in a white Pontiac as police arrived.

"I hollered his name. I said 'Joe, what's going on?' He took off going down the street," said witness Xavier Davidson.

"The subject attempted to flee at which time a confrontation ensued and the subject was struck," said Miami-Dade police spokesman Lt. John Jenkins.

"I heard screaming let me see your hands let me see your hands and shots," said Davidson.

The suspect died on the scene.

Chism says the teenage niece who narrowly escaped the attack told him she was the intended target.

"She said they'd been arguing before. She said he was after her, that's what she told me. That he wanted to get her," said a witness. "So maybe they were trying to protect her or something and they just got in the way I don't know."

In a post on her Facebook page, the niece wrote in a post "Please pray for my mother, me, my aunt and my grandmother including me who got stapled by my uncle all because nobody wished a deadbeat father 'Happy Father's Day'."

The three women were airlifted to Kendall Regional Medical Center, where one is in critical condition and the other two are in fair condition.

Police are still investigating the shooting, including whether the man was armed.

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