A Miami area man took his dog for a walk. Cops say a neighbor shot him to death.
A simmering feud over a pressure cleaner turned deadly Sunday, when a man walking his dog was shot dead on a street a block from where he lived and just outside his suspected killer’s Coral Way home.
Police say Jose Foyo, 54, a sales consultant who loved to restore old cars, apparently cursed at the suspect’s girlfriend just outside the couple’s home. They were words, the woman told police, that led to his death.
Identified by police only as Ms. Baez, the woman said when she told her boyfriend what Foyo had said, Angel Perez, 68, got so angry he grabbed his gun and raced to confront Foyo on the sidewalk of the home in the 9800 block of Southwest 27th Terrace.
“Immediately the subject ran outside, pointed a revolver and shot the victim,” a Miami-Dade police officer said in Perez’s arrest report.
Foyo was shot four times, once in the head. He died at the scene. After the shooting, a witness told police that Perez ran back into his home. The witness called 911, police said. When police got there, they said Perez came outside willingly and was taken into custody without incident.
Also in the home was Baez, who was also taken into custody. The couple were taken to Miami-Dade police headquarters. Police said they both provided statements. Baez was released.
Perez was charged with second-degree murder with a weapon and denied bond. Police said video surveillance captured the shooting and they recovered what they believe-to-be the murder weapon inside Perez’s home after obtaining a search warrant.
Foyo’s girlfriend, who spoke with WTVJ Channel 6 but didn’t share her name, said the shooting happened about a block from their home and that the argument between Foyo and Perez was over a pressure cleaner. In Spanish, she told the television station she’d been with Foyo for 12 years and that he was “a good man, a good son and a good human being.”
Marcelo Alfano, a friend of Foyos since the late 1980s, said his friend quit drinking about three or four years ago, after caring for both his parents who died at about the same time. Alfano said Foyo was born in Cuba and that his parents moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. By the late 1980s, Foyo was living in South Florida.
“He lived life very hard,” said Alfano, who has fond memories of the two of them carousing around South Beach together when they were younger. “He was a you loved him, or hated him type fellow.”
Alfano said Foyo’s most recent job was selling restaurant and cleaning equipment. He said his friend owned several Harley Davidson’s over the years and that he had recently returned from Seattle where he picked up a Volkswagen Beetle that he was restoring.
Alfano believes Foyo and the suspected shooter got to know each other over the restoration of the Volkswagen. That led to Foyo lending Perez a pressure cleaner, which he damaged, Foyo’s girlfriend told Alfano. The fight was likely over Foyo trying to get some type of restitution for the damaged equipment.
He also said Foyo has always been religious, but began attending church on a daily basis after his parents death.
“He was very spiritual,” said Alfano. “And yes, he was a great son. He took care of both his parents until they died.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2021 at 3:41 PM.
