How cops say a bad Tinder date is linked to a Miami-Dade officer being shot in the face
A car stolen during a Tinder date was spotted by a Miami-Dade police officer, who was then shot in the face by the driver last week, according to Miami Gardens police.
The events leading up to the Dec. 5 shooting of Miami-Dade Robbery Intervention Detail unit detective Ricaurte Lugo are in the arrest warrant that Miami Gardens police sought for Alexis Cardenas, a 22-year-old from Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The arrest warrant describes her as the bait for the Nov. 20 carjacking of a black 2023 Volkswagen Jetta.
Cardenas, who was arrested in St. Lucie County last Thursday, is in Miami-Dade Corrections custody on charges of armed robbery-carjacking and conspiracy to commit robbery by carjacking. She hasn’t been granted bond.
Also at Miami-Dade Corrections’ Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center without bond: 20-year-old Gabriel Gongora, previously a resident of Miramar, allegedly the driver of the Jetta and the gunman who shot Lugo. Gongora is charged with attempted first-degree premeditated murder of law enforcement, two counts of discharging a firearm from a vehicle and two counts of criminal mischief of $1,000 or more.
Miami-Dade police said Wednesday that Lugo is recovering at home.
READ MORE: Miramar man jailed on charge he shot Miami-Dade police officer conducting surveillance
A Tinder date at Top Golf
The Jetta’s owner told Miami Gardens police he met with Cardenas, a Tinder match, at Top Golf, 17321 NW Seventh Ave., around 1 a.m. Nov. 20. After conversation as they sat in the Volkswagen, he told police Cardenas told him to pull into the Solabella apartment complex and park in front of 17381 NW Seventh Ave. He did so as Cardenas continued to text someone on her phone.
Needing to urinate, the Volkswagen owner decided to use nearby bushes. When he returned, he said, Cardenas was waiting, but so were two men with guns. They demanded he lie on the ground, unlock his cellphone and surrender it. They jumped in the car with Cardenas — the owner noticed she sat in the back seat, smirking — and they drove away.
Jump forward 15 days and, a Miami-Dade arrest report says, Lugo spotted the car leaving the Heaven Estates Trailer Park at Northwest 202nd Street and 57th Avenue. He followed the car until Gongora began “driving erratically” in the parking lot of the strip mall on the southeast corner of Northwest 186th Street and 67th Avenue. Unable to shake Lugo, Gongora fired out of his car in the parking lot, hitting Lugo in the face.
Gongora was later arrested while in the car. The Miami Gardens arrest warrant for Cardenas, who the Volkswagen owner identified in a photo lineup, said some of the car owner’s personal property was outside Gongora’s home.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade detective wounded. ‘Cowardly’ gunman fired at an unmarked car
This story was originally published December 14, 2022 at 2:57 PM.
