SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Bond has been granted to one of the four subjects involved in a robbery that led to a police pursuit in Southwest Miami-Dade and ended in a crash and school lockdown before the suspects were rounded up.
Police said the ordeal started in the area of U.S. 1 and Southwest 200th Street, after a 12-year-old, two 14-year-olds and Flowers robbed a 60-year-old woman at a bus stop.
Twenty-seven-year-old Charlie Flowers Jr. appeared in bond court, Tuesday morning and was issued a total of $10,000 bond with house arrest.
One of the 14-year-old subjects appeared in juvenile court as well and will be held until a hearing in May.
Flowers and the three juveniles were also responsible, investigators said, for the robbery of 94-year-old Kathleen Johnson in the Southland Mall parking lot.
She reportedly suffered minor injuries for trying to fend off the subjects before they stole her purse, which had a silver rosary inside. “I’d hate to lose that, I mean the other things can be replaced but not that,” Johnson said.
“He grabbed it, and I turned around, and I grabbed it back from him,” said Johnson, one day after the robbery. “Then, he grabbed it again and pulled it off. I was off balance. He did not knock me down, but I was off balance and I fell down. I guess that’s where I hurt my hand.”
When asked why the 94-year-old tried to fight the robbers, she said, “Why not? What would you do?”
“I feel that it’s too bad that these young boys have to do these kinds of things,” Johnson said. “I raised two boys and I didn’t have any trouble like that with them.”
Officers followed a Hyundai Sonata, which was reported stolen and believed to be linked to the robberies into the area of Southwest 139th Avenue. That’s when the four subjects inside decided to bail out, forcing the lockdown of Miami MacArthur South Senior High School.
During the pursuit, officials said, the subjects collided with a cruiser, and then crashed into a wall at the campus. “The vehicle not only crashed into our police unit but also ended up crashing into the actual school,” said Miami-Dade Police Detective Dan Ferrin.
Witnesses at the school said it was a chaotic scene. “It was a whole bunch of police. It was like five police [officers] going to the back, one going the other way and stuff like that,” said ninth-grader Dajahni Warren.
The school was placed on a temporary lockdown due to the subjects running onto the school property.
Police said no one was hurt during either of the crashes.
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