Video shows man wielding knife at popular South Beach bar before he’s shot dead by cops
The Miami Beach police officer hospitalized after a Saturday night knife attack suffered stab wounds to his arm and legs, law enforcement sources said on Monday.
Officer Ricardo Castillo, who has been with the department for the past three years, remained in stable condition and in intensive care at Jackson Memorial Hospital Monday afternoon. Before joining Miami Beach, Castillo spent four years with the Florida Highway Patrol.
Police said Monday that Ryan O. Simms, the 49-year-old police shot and killed after an altercation that led to Castillo’s knifing, was spotted first that night by security at a popular nearby restaurant and bar. They reported that he had threatened staff with a knife.
A video released by police Monday shows Simms dressed in a bandana and light-colored sweater seemingly arguing with someone just off the camera in front of Mango’s Tropical Cafe on Ocean Drive and Ninth Street. In his right hand is a large knife, which Simms rocks back and forth even as dozens of people walk past him on the crowded sidewalk.
Miami Beach Police Spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said security at Mango’s notified police and then pointed out Simms, who was making his way north on the sidewalk, then crossed the street towards the Art Deco Welcome Center on the sand across from the Clevelander South Beach Hotel and Bar at Ocean Drive and 10th Street. It was just after 9 p.m.
Police caught up with Simms as he partially sat on a wall along the sidewalk just under the iconic South Beach Clock across the street from the Clevelander. A cellphone video taken by someone in Miami Beach caught his ensuing entanglement with police. Police said that before one officer used a Taser on Simms, other officers repeatedly told him to drop the weapon.
When the Taser prong struck him, the video showed the man falling to the ground, then three or four Miami Beach patrol officers converging on him. Officers then quickly back away in the video and at least a dozen gunshots ring out. Police didn’t say Monday how many times Simms was hit or how many officers fired their weapons. The shooting is being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Two days after the shooting, all that remained from the encounter were blood stains and a used gauze package. Tourists, most unaware of what happened there two nights before, continued to be photographed in front of the landmark.
Miami Design Preservation League executive director Daniel Ciraldo works near the clock tower at the Art Deco Welcome Center. He said he checked the building Monday for damage done by bullets, but didn’t find any.
“It’s a little bit disconcerting to know that there was a criminal act around our center,” he said.
For some, Saturday’s shooting was reminiscent of an incident more than four years ago, when a man named David Winesette was shot and killed by Miami Beach Police Officer Fabio Cabrera. Winesette, who was 51 at the time, had just tried to rob a bank and claimed he had a bomb, when officers trained their weapons on him after he emerged shirtless and with a knife from a barber shop.
A split-second after an officer fired a Taser at Winesette, Cabrera unleashed two rounds from his AR-15 assault rifle. One of them hit Winesette in the heart and killed him immediately. Two years later state prosecutors determined that Cabrera was justified in his use of lethal force.
Saturday night’s shooting came at a particularly sensitive time for Miami Beach leaders. The NFL’s Super Bowl is only three weeks away and South Beach — one of the more popular vacation destinations in the country — figures to be displayed prominently in events leading up to and on game day itself.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said Castillo was patrolling the popular South Beach-front promenade as part of the department’s Operation Safe Streets initiative, a campaign to increase police visibility in the Entertainment District. Gelber visited Castillo in the hospital Sunday and said he seemed to be in good spirits.
State Rep. Michael Grieco, a former Miami Beach Commissioner and state prosecutor, said he’s seen various videos of Simm’s interactions with police, and he’s convinced the officers followed protocol.
“They told him repeatedly to drop the knife,” Grieco said of the police. “If anything, they showed a high level of restraint.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 3:22 PM.
