MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A couple that was taking a night stroll on South Beach was stabbed and choked multiple types, and now officials are sending a message to criminals as crime escalates in the area.
A Miami Beach commissioner told 7News that he wants to send a clear message — if you’re hoping to go to Ocean Drive to commit a crime, you will be caught.
The two people who were attacked spoke with 7News Tuesday afternoon.
“The only thing I yelled at him was, ‘Hey, please, give them the phone. I don’t want you to die, I don’t want to die,'” said victim Karla Gonzalez. “‘I have two daughters waiting for me at home.'”
Gonzalez, a mother of a 6-year-old and 3-year-old, wanted to take a picture of a thunderstorm that was lighting up the South Beach sky with a friend, late Friday night. Moments later, she was stabbed and robbed.
She described the moment she came face-to-face with two men who approached her. “He yelled at me like, ‘Don’t look at me or I’m gonna shoot you,'” she said. “He said, ‘You know what, I am going to keep this bag.'”
“I stand up, and when I look at my friend, he is on the floor lying down, his face on the sand,” Gonzalez said, “and I’m like, ‘Hey, wake up, wake up,’ and I shake him, and he doesn’t react, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, they killed him.'”
Her friend, Murat Ingecoglu, was choked until he lost consciousness. “I put my hand inside his shirt to touch if he had any blood here on his chest,” Gonzalez said. “He didn’t have anything, so I was like, ‘You know what? Please, don’t die,’ and I run.”
Ingecoglu reenacted how the person assaulted him. “He pushes me and with knife, they took my phone, and then I pass out,” he said.
That’s when Gonzalez said she tried to chase the suspects and then realized she was bleeding from her arm. “I went back, I got my shoes on my hand. When I look at my hand, I see me bleeding, so I said, ‘Oh, it’s not a Taser, it’s a knife,'” she said. “They stabbed me.”
They then called police, who caught two robbery suspects in connection to the crimes. Suspects Jorge Rodriguez and Jovany Campo were both arrested and face serious charges.
That Friday night, Miami Beach Commissioner Rickey Arriola was on a ride-along with Miami Beach Police when the robbery took place. “We’re taking this very seriously. That’s why I was out there. That’s why the chief was out there,” he said.
Arriola took several photos that showed the suspect’s car, which collided with a Miami Beach Police officer’s ATV and a taxi cab. “We want to send a message to the criminal element that if you’re gonna come to Miami Beach and try to commit a crime, you are going to be caught,” he said.
No serious injuries occurred during the collision.
Gonzalez was able to retrieve her purse and her phone.
The mother said she is relieved she was able to see her two daughters again. “My angels. They get to see their mom again, that’s it,” she said. “That’s all I thought about.”
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