MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Police said they took two men into custody after a rideshare at gunpoint led to an hours-long SWAT standoff in the heart of South Beach’s entertainment district.
Cameras captured one of the subjects with his hands up as SWAT officers with long guns took him into custody at a condominium building along the 1400 block of Ocean Drive, just after 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
“Seeing the SWAT team show up, fully armed, you’re like, ‘What is really going on in here?’ You know, so, yeah, it was crazy,” said visitor Andrew Galicia.
But Miami Beach Police said this all started outside the city several hours earlier, when a driver for a rideshare company picked up the subjects in Bay Harbor Islands.
The driver later called 911 to report that the passengers had forced him to drive them to the condo at gunpoint, and he dropped them off there.
Officers responded just before 9:15 p.m. and were able to immediately locate and apprehend one of the subjects. However, investigators said, the second subject barricaded himself inside a second-floor unit.
“And then we go outside, and we see like three police officers, and [they said], ‘You gotta move, you gotta move.’ We were like ‘whoa, whoa,'” said Galicia.
In an effort to ensure everyone was safe, SWAT officers evacuated everyone from the building and from the surrounding area during this standoff.
Dozens of visitors were forced out of their vacation rentals until around 3 a.m.
“Then they were knocking on the door, saying that we had to evacuate,” said Tierra Esquerre.
Ethan Sewall, who was staying nearby with his family, described to 7News what he saw as they were returning from dinner.
“At first, it was not – we didn’t think much of it, and then it just kept getting longer and longer, and the police kept pushing everybody back farther, so not too worried, but definitely a little bit concerned,” he said. “We saw a family got pulled out; they were more shook up. They were asleep, and they got pulled out by the police.”
It was a frustrating way for visitor Andres Mujica to kick off his vacation.
“I arrived after running the Boston Marathon, 11 p.m., tired as hell, and everything was blocked,” he said.
Galicia learned he would have to wait longer than anticipated to return to his rental.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it’ll only be a few hours,’ and then we come back at like 2 a.m., and then there’s – the whole road’s blocked off,” said Galicia.
As for Mujica, he dished out a couple of hundred dollars to stay at another hotel instead of his rental.
“Yeah, because I needed to sleep, and I wasn’t going to wait for them to clear out the situation,” he said.
Hours later, the second subject was taken into custody without incident.
The heavy police presence and the sight of officers with long guns frightened area residents and visitors.
Andre, who is visiting from Brazil, said seeing this takedown is pretty common where he comes from, but he’s not used to seeing it in the U.S.
“It’s very impressionnant, impressionnant. It’s not French police; it’s very secure in the USA,” said another visitor.
Speaking in Spanish, a woman who lives nearby told 7News that this was a large operation, with K-9s and snipers.
“It worried me, but I wasn’t really scared, because I saw they had it all under control,” she said.
The investigation went on for hours, well into Wednesday morning, as crime scene technicians and detectives combed every inch of the room where the subject had barricaded himself. They took several bags of evidence that will hopefully tell them more about what exactly happened.
“It’s always interesting around here,” said Galicia.
As of Wednesday afternoon, police have not identified the men they detained. Bay Harbor Islands Police are leading the investigation, since this ordeal started there.
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