Cops say mom wrongly claimed Black men in Miami shot at her car. Now, she’s been charged

When her two young daughters wound up injured in a shooting on Tuesday, police say, Angela Pupo offered a detailed story — falsely blaming two Black men.

She claimed her car was stopped at an intersection in Liberty City when, through her rearview mirror, she “observed two black males running toward her vehicle,” according to a Miami-Dade police report.

Gunshots rang out, followed by the sound of glass shattering. One man was thin “with dreads,” the other “heavyset with a low haircut,” she told officers during questioning at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Police have now charged Pupo, 32, a white Cuban American, with providing false information to police during an investigation, a misdemeanor. Suspicious detectives grilled Pupo, who stuck to her story for about 20 minutes before breaking down in tears and admitting she lied, according to an arrest report released on Thursday.

Pupo remained jailed on Thursday afternoon. Her court record does not yet list a defense attorney.

The charge adds to the other accusations against Pupo, who police say admitted she took her daughters along to shoplift at a Hialeah seafood market. The real shooting, police said, happened when a security guard fired his pistol at Pupo’s car as it drove off, injuring the girls, ages 6 and 8.

Hialeah Police arrested Pupo on charges of aggravated child abuse and petty theft. Stedman Amaya, the suspected shoplifter who was with Pupo and is accused of stealing a $199 box of lobster tails, is on the run.

The security guard, Leonardo Morales Gomez, 50, is facing two counts of attempted murder and two counts of attempted manslaughter. Investigators say Morales was not in danger when he fired his gun at the fleeing car.

Pupo’s arrest comes as there’s been a national reckoning on race in the United States, and on how the justice system treats Black men in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Many high-profile cases of citizens wrongfully accusing Black men of crimes have emerged in recent months — even spurring a proposed law in San Francisco that would allow people to sue over racially motivated false 911 calls.

In one highly publicized case, New York City prosecutors this month charged a white woman with filing a false police report after she claimed a Black bird watcher was threatening her in Central Park. In Orlando, prosecutors charged a former theme-park security guard with false imprisonment after he called 911 and detained a Black teenager bicycling to basketball practice.

In Miami-Dade, there was an even more egregious case in May.

Polcie said Patricia Ripley, 47 and Hispanic, told police that two Black men ran her car off the road, then kidnapped her severely autistic son, Alejandro. Her story spurred an Amber Alert and a statewide hunt for the boy and his supposed kidnapper.s

But Miami-Dade homicide detectives say they soon unraveled the story, and determined that Ripley pushed Alejandro into a canal, where he drowned. Ripley is facing an indictment for first-degree murder, and has also been charged with filing a false police report.

“For her to place blame of her crime on another community, it’s just as well another crime that was committed. It’s very disappointing,” Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez told reporters after Ripley’s arrest.

This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 1:13 PM.