Tampa hotel 911 call: ‘There’s a guy with a gun in front drive.’ Listen to it yourself

The call to 911 in the hours before Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo (Freddy) Ramirez shot himself came at 6:33 p.m. Sunday from security at the downtown Tampa hotel where Ramirez was staying.

“My God,” said a woman calling from the hotel, describing herself to the dispatcher as hotel security. “The front desk is telling me there’s a guy with a gun in our front drive.”

The dispatcher asked for a description.

“No, I didn’t get that much info because of the way the call was received,” she said. “I’ve got somebody who supposedly is in the front drive with a gun,” she said, adding that the information came from guests on their way into the hotel.

“Officers are on the way,” said the dispatcher. The call lasted one minute, 32 seconds, and Ramirez’s name was never mentioned.

A few hours later Ramirez, according to police and law enforcement sources, shot himself in the head on the side of I-75 just south of Tampa, with his wife, Jody, in the vehicle.

Three days later Ramirez, who leads the largest police force in the Southeast U.S., was out of surgery and recovering, likely having lost sight in his right eye, but avoiding brain damage.

What led to the tragedy, remains fuzzy.

This much is known: Tampa Police arrived at the hotel minutes after the 911 call. Ramirez and his wife were in their 12th-floor room. Police waited for them to leave the room. When they did, police said the couple admitted to arguing, but Ramirez said no weapon was drawn. Police said they left after Jody Ramirez said she wasn’t concerned for her safety.

A short while later, according to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Ramirez called her and offered to resign, describing to her an altercation with his wife and that police had been called. Levine Cava didn’t go into detail.

“He was very remorseful. I reassured him we would talk,” Levine Cava said in a press conference Wednesday, her first since Ramirez wounded himself. “He told me he was driving back to Miami.”

Then, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Ramirez pulled over on the side of I-75 near at mile marker 244 south of Tampa and shot himself. When Levine Cava heard the news, she arranged for a Miami-Dade County helicopter and flew to Tampa.

Steadman Stahl, president of the agency’s largest police union and who visited with Ramirez’s family in Tampa, said Ramirez was recovering. Levine Cava said Wednesday he was “alert, awake and responsive.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2023 at 6:56 PM.