No charges in Miami-Dade police raid that left naked suspect dead, bullet holes in hotel
A Miami-Dade police officer who fired 16 shots at a naked man in a small bathroom hotel near Miami International Airport, hitting him in the heart and the genitals, won’t face any charges in the man’s death.
Jaime Robles, 34, was killed instantly, his body sprawled near an AK-47 with 29 live rounds resting on the bathroom sink — a shooting his girlfriend still believes was retaliatory and targeted.
The August 2022 raid on the room came just one day after Miami-Dade robbery detective Cesar “Echy” Echaverry had been mortally wounded during a Liberty City car chase and shootout that also left gunman Jeremy Willie Horton dead. Though Robles played no role in the young detective’s shooting, Horton had been driving his white Hyundai Sonata, a car that police suspected the pair had used in an armed robbery a day earlier at a Davie convenience store.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office found “insufficient evidence” to make a criminal case against Special Response Team member Anthony Jimenez, who led a squad of five heavily-armed officers into room 239 of the Extended Stay American hotel in Miami Springs. State investigators found Jimenez, who exercised his right not to provide a statement, had been briefed on Robles’ connection to Horton.
In a memo closing out the investigation, a seven-member review panel made up of experienced prosecutors with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, said without a statement from Jimenez “detailing what was in his mind,” they couldn’t begin to speculate why he fired his weapon.
“Therefore, there is insufficient evidence to make a clear determination that the shooting was legally justified. Likewise, because of this lack of evidence, there is insufficient evidence to file any criminal charges that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the panel concluded.
The panel made its decision after reviewing an investigation into the shooting by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that concluded last summer.
During the Aug. 16, 2022 raid at the Extended Stay, police bashed the hotel room door open with a sledge-hammer. The found that Jimenez was holding a shield with his left hand while he unloaded the rounds with the 9 mm Glock he held in his right hand. Bullets fired at the suspected armed-robber went through the wall into an adjacent room. No one else was injured but Jimenez had fired his weapon while two young children were in the hotel room.
“Babies were in the room with him during the shooting. It’s been a year-and-a-half and I can’t get that out of my mind,” said Yesina Velazquez, Robles’ girlfriend, who was grabbed by police in a stairwell during the raid. “I totally believe they went in there to kill him. I believe they were hot-headed from what happened the night before.”
The children, who Velazquez told the Miami Herald on Friday were being raised by her and Robles for a friend who was in jail, have been with foster parents since the incident.
A robbery in Dania Beach
The robbery that started the chain of events happened on Aug. 15, when two men entered a convenience store on Dania Beach Boulevard, one with a handgun, the other a long rifle. The clerk gave them $800 and took a photo of the Hyundai’s tag as the men took off. The men were believed to be Horton and Robles.
With the help of a license plate reader, Broward detectives tracked the car to the Extended Stay on Fairway Drive in Miami Springs. BSO contacted Miami-Dade’s Robbery Intervention Detail, which located the car at the hotel, followed it and tried to pull it over in Liberty City. But Horton, who was alone behind the wheel refused to come out when police surrounded it on a Liberty City street corner. He finally drove off, striking several officers’ vehicles.
When Horton crashed a few blocks away, he got out and ran. Echaverry wasn’t far behind. Horton shot the detective in the head, before he was killed by police gunfire. Police returned to Extended Stay the next day and after a briefing and killed Robles.
