Shootings of homeless 2 days apart leave 2 dead, 1 hurt. Police haven’t connected cases, yet.
The shootings were two days apart and just 10 blocks from each other, all in broad daylight. The three victims were homeless, black and in their 40s. Two were men, the other a woman. Two are dead, one remains clinging to life in critical condition.
Despite the likeness of the crimes, police aren’t willing to say the shootings are connected — at least not yet.
“We’re looking at the similarities, obviously,” said Miami-Dade Detective Christopher Thomas. “But we don’t have any concrete evidence of that [a connection]. They could be isolated instances. We’re still waiting on ballistics.”
On Friday, two weeks after Rony Dassas, 40, and a friend were gunned down outside a bathroom at Oak Grove Park and Diane Edwards, 41, was shot in a vacant lot just south of Northeast 167th Street, a major thoroughfare, police spread out in the Northeast Miami-Dade neighborhood handing out fliers and trying to jog memories.
Dassas and Edwards were killed. The third victim, who remains hospitalized, has not been named by police.
On a blustery overcast day, plainclothes detectives and patrol cops went door-to-door to businesses along busy Northeast 167th Street handing out pictures of the man and woman who were murdered, asking if anyone recognized the photos or remembered anything that could offer a clue to the crimes.
The undertaking was pushed by Ron Book, longtime chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust. Shortly before the walk, Book and Thomas spoke briefly in the run-down parking lot of an abandoned restaurant near where Edwards was killed.
“Somebody saw something. Somebody knows something,” said Book. “We can not allow these cases to go on. I’ve been the chair for 25 years and we’ve never had cases like this.”
Thomas said there have been no similar shootings in the past 12 days and that there were no other cases — for now — that police believe to be connected. No one has said if there were cameras at any of the locations that could offer clues and, despite both shootings taking place in the light of day, police haven’t been offered any credible witness accounts.
The first incident happened just after 7 a.m. on Dec. 27, just outside the bathroom at Oak Grove Park, 690 NE 159th St. That’s where Dassas was killed and his friend severely injured. A passerby noticed Dassas on the ground and called 911. Police didn’t give details of Dassas’ wounds.
The second shooting took the life of Edwards two days later at 3 p.m. Sunday. It was just a little north of where Dassas was discovered, in a vacant parking lot at Northeast 166th Street and Fourth Avenue. Police again didn’t say where the bullet entered the woman’s body.
Sgt. Reasha Fields-Williams, who oversees a patrol unit in the department’s Intracoastal division, said the vacated restaurant where Edwards was killed had become a popular place to sleep for the homeless in the neighborhood, with usually three or four people spending each night there.
“They could be isolated instances,” said Thomas. “But the similarities are distance and the type of shootings.”
Anyone with information is urged to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477 or Miami-Dade’s homicide unit at 305-471-2400.
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 4:42 PM.
