Miami-Dade officer clinging to life after shooting. Ex-girlfriend pulled trigger, cops say
A Miami-Dade police officer was fighting for his life on Friday as his ex-girlfriend — a former schools cop — was taken into custody and charged with shooting him in the head, police said.
The veteran officer, who wasn’t working at the time of the shooting Friday morning, was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.
Miami-Dade Police, who hadn’t publicly named the officer Friday, released a brief statement on Twitter saying he was in critical condition and that the shooting “appeared to be a domestic-related incident.” A police spokesman said the victim is a 17-year veteran of the police force who works in the Homeland Security Bureau.
Early Saturday morning, Hialeah police said the suspected shooter was Yessenia Sanchez, 32, who had a seven-year relationship with the victim. Police said she used GPS to track her ex-boyfriend to a home in the 1200 block of West 79th Street, unholstered her gun and shot him once before taking off and crashing her vehicle into another car while trying to get away.
She then abandoned the vehicle, police said, and took off on foot before being apprehended. Police didn’t name the victim.
Sanchez was charged with attempted first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, aggravated stalking and leaving the scene of an accident. Police said they identified Sanchez through video surveillance and she later confessed to the shooting and admitted she tracked the victim with GPS.
Sanchez was arrested last year on a domestic violence charge stemming from a fight with the same boyfriend. According to court documents filed at the time, the victim was listed as Miami-Dade Police Officer Damian Colon. Several law enforcement sources confirmed Friday that Colon was the officer who was shot. Miami-Dade property records show Colon’s family owns the home where the shooting took place Friday.
Though Miami-Dade Police declined to say if the officer shot Friday was the victim from the 2021 case, police union president Steadman Stahl acknowledged “there was a past domestic dispute a year ago involving the same couple.”
Multiple law enforcement sources said the officer was in his pickup truck parked outside his family’s Hialeah home just before sunrise Friday when Sanchez pulled up in her vehicle and blocked him in. They said surveillance video that captured the incident shows Colon get out of his truck and walk to the porch, with Sanchez following behind.
Then, she shot him at point-blank range, the sources said, walked back to her truck, drove off and crashed a few miles away. She was taken into custody by Hialeah Police, who are investigating the shooting, at her family’s home.
Standing in almost the same spot outside Jackson Memorial where he spoke of another Miami-Dade officer shot and fatally injured less than three months ago, Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez called the most recent shooting “devastating.”
Ramirez said the officer — whom he didn’t name — was out of surgery by mid-afternoon and moved to a different room where his family could be at his bedside. He said he suffered a “gunshot wound to the head.” Ramirez said he knows the injured officer quite well and described him as a family man with children.
“He’s still with us. We want to ride that positivity,” Ramirez said.
Sanchez’s September 2021 arrest form claims her fight with Colon started over childcare and she got so angry that she hurled a “ceramic object” at her boyfriend. After he left, she called and asked him to return, the report said.
When he got back to her home, police said, Sanchez was pointing a gun at her head, which he was able to take from her. When he started to leave again, she punched and scratched him before grabbing a knife and again, threatening to harm herself, the report said.
She also threatened to slash his tires — he later found the tires of his police car flattened. When she was arrested by Miami-Dade police, she claimed Colon slapped her in the face, but officers noted “the defendant had no evidence to support her claim,” the 2021 report said.
Miami-Dade police at that time arrested her for misdemeanor battery. The outcome of the criminal case is unknown. The case is no longer visible on the clerk of courts website, indicating that the charge was likely dismissed and the record sealed.
Sanchez, who had been hired by the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department in June 2019, resigned her post shortly after her arrest, in lieu of termination.
State records also show that Colon owns a clothing company called UC Apparel Corp., which sells T-shirts, patches and caps.
Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, called the officer in critical condition “a highly respected and decorated officer.”
Though he wasn’t on duty Friday when he was shot, the incident still sent a chill through South Florida’s largest police force, which lost one of its own in a line-of-duty gun battle less than three months ago. Miami-Dade Det. Cesar “Echy” Echaverry was shot in the head and killed while chasing an armed robbery suspect in Liberty City in August. The suspect was also killed in the firefight.
Colon’s Instagram page advertises a special edition #Echystrong black T-shirt with a patch showing the fallen officer’s badge number. It sells for $20. All the money, the post says, will go to his survivors.
This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 9:30 AM.
