Man shot in belly, buttocks as sides trade fire in North Miami Beach

Gunfire erupted Monday morning in an alley behind a row of North Miami Beach homes and ended with one man hospitalized with three gunshot wounds, to the stomach, buttocks and head.

But police believe the man shot actually started the shooting, targeting his victim as he was returning home and parking his car after dropping his girlfriend off at work. That man was not injured.

“It sounds like one gentleman was just coming back to his home, and he returned fire,” said North Miami Beach Police Maj. Kathy Katerman.

On Monday afternoon police were talking to several men, including the man who may have been targeted and who returned fire, injuring the aggressor. He lives in a home along Northeast 159th Street, between 12th and 13th avenues with his mother and grandmother.

They hadn’t released either man’s name, or the condition of the man who was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. Both men were in their 20s, Katerman said.

According to police, the targeted man had just returned home from dropping his girlfriend off at work, and was parking his car along the alley behind his home. As he got out of his car, a man either standing next to a green Toyota Tercel, or sitting in it, began firing.

The man believed to be the original shooter was struck several times, and drove his car west along the alley before crashing at the end of the tiny street. He then got out of the car, police said, and made his way to the front of a home on the edge of the alley and along Northeast 12th Avenue.

“He went to the door of the house and he kind of dropped right there,” Katerman said.

Police taped off parts of 12th and 13th avenues and several homes along 159th Street. Family members of the man believed to be targeted waited in a small park nearby, with little information. They would not discuss the shooting. Blood and bullet casings littered driveways and the alley behind the homes.

Katerman said it’s too early for police to determine if the man believed to be the aggressor acted alone, or if others were with him in the car. She said officers would continue to interview witnesses and are searching for surveillance video that might have captured the incident.

This story was originally published October 20, 2014 at 1:08 PM with the headline "Man shot in belly, buttocks as sides trade fire in North Miami Beach."