Questions linger about police shooting in hotel. Kids were in room, bullets cut through walls

In less than 24 hours last month, Miami-Dade police shot and killed two men. One was a suspected armed robber, Jeremy Willie Horton, who led police on a chase in Liberty City before he fatally shot a young Miami-Dade police detective, then was killed himself by other officers.

The shooting the following day of Jaime Robles got far less attention but has raised more questions about the department’s action.

Robles, 34, was killed after Miami-Dade’s specialized tactical unit burst in to serve a search warrant in room 239 of the Extended Stay America in Miami Springs where Horton was believed to have stayed with him. Both men were on police radar in connection with an armed robbery in Broward County but Robles played no role in the shootout the night before that killed Detective Cesar Echaverry.

After the shooting, police reported that Robles had been armed with an AK-47-style rifle.

But one month later, investigators have revealed little else about the operation that left Robles dead in a small room with his two young children inside. Police bullets also penetrated walls or the floor, ripping into at least one adjacent and occupied room.

“I do have a lot of questions myself,” said Robles’ fiancée who was at the hotel that day but not inside the room where the shooting happened. “I just can’t understand how the babies got out safe and Jaime did not.”

Detectives haven’t said whether they’ve confirmed Robles was part of the earlier armed robbery that sparked the tragic chain of events. Citing an ongoing investigation, county and state investigators have declined to say whether Robles was actually holding the rifle, or fired, when he was shot. They’ve declined requests by the Miami Herald to release police body-camera footage of the shooting.

They also haven’t said whether the SRT commanders considered other tactics — like luring Robles outside with a ruse — that would not have put his children or other hotel guests at risk.

Robles’ fiancée, who asked not to be named because she fears retaliation from police, told the Herald that a Broward detective asked if she might call Jaime and have him come out of the room. She said she agreed, but they never took her up on the idea.

And the department has also declined to name the Special Response Team member who fired, citing a state law aimed at protecting crime victims — although officials won’t say what crime was committed against the officer. But multiple law enforcement sources have told the Herald the SRT officer was Anthony Jimenez, who has been involved in at least two previous fatal shootings involving armed gunmen during the past four years.

“He works in a highly dangerous unit that goes after the worst of the worst,” said Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association. “They had information that he was armed. You never know what’s waiting on the other side of the door for you.”

Both police shootings are being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which will eventually present its case to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office to consider if any criminal laws were broken. Police officers in Florida are rarely prosecuted for on-duty shootings — state law gives them wide latitude to use deadly force, including shooting at a fleeing suspected felon.

The Store Robbery

This is what is known about the Miami Springs shooting and what led up to it, according to court documents, police reports and sources with knowledge of the case:

The robbery that started the chain of events happened on Aug. 15, at 3:39 p.m. at the 911 Food Store, 450 E. Dania Beach Blvd. The clerk, Mohammed Khan, said two masked men — one with a handgun, the other with a long rifle — walked into the store and pointed their weapons at him, according to court documents.

“Give me the money!” yelled the man with the handgun. Khan gave the men $800, which he stuffed into one of the men’s bags. The two robbers ran out of the store and jumped into a white Hyundai.

Although the store did not have a video surveillance system, Khan snapped a photo of the Hyundai and its tag. Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives ran the number several ways and it came back to a Hyundai Sonata with the tag JCDY02, according to a search warrant.

Khan’s photo showed that the Hyundai Sonata had a distinct mark on the back bumper.

A police license plate reader later showed that the Hyundai — with the same bumper mark — had last been tracked the morning of the robbery to the Extended Stay, at 101 Fairway Drive in Miami Springs, on a stretch of hotels just north of Miami International Airport. BSO reached out to Miami-Dade’s Robbery Intervention Detail, which located the car at the hotel, followed it and tried to pull it over in Liberty City.

Behind the wheel was Horton, 32, who police pulled over on Northwest 62nd Street and 17th Avenue in Liberty City about 8:21 p.m. that night. That’s where Horton, surrounded by police cars, refused to come out, and after a standoff he drove off, striking several officers’ vehicles, according to the department.

A short car chase ended when the Hyundai plowed into a passing car, and then a utility pole at Northwest 62nd Street and Seventh Avenue. The people in the passing car were not seriously hurt.

Horton got out of the car and ran off, with Echaverry and other detectives chasing. That’s when Echaverry was shot in the head, and Horton was killed by police gunfire.

The Aftermath

Echaverry, 29, clung to life for several days before he was pronounced dead. Multiple law enforcement sources say Miami-Dade Police’s crime lab has since matched the bullet that killed Echaverry to Horton’s handgun.

Less than a day after the killing, BSO and Miami-Dade investigators rushed to the Miami Springs hotel. Staff and a manager helped them identify where Horton, who hailed from Georgia, had been staying: in room 239, according to search warrants.

Robles’ fiancée later told reporters that she and her boyfriend had met Horton one week before, lent him the Hyundai and he never returned. “We thought he stole the car,” she told the Herald, adding that they did not know Horton had been involved in the shooting of the officer.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office, which is handling the robbery probe, declined to comment, saying the case remains open.

Investigators, seeking evidence to help solve the Dania Beach armed robbery, obtained a search warrant for the room.

Robles’ fiancée said that officers stopped her in the hallway, took her to another part of the hotel and began questioning her. That’s when a Broward detective floated the idea about calling Robles.

“I said yes. I kept telling them he’s not dangerous. Why didn’t they give me the opportunity to do so?” she said. “Later, they told me they had him in custody. I’m thinking Jaime is safe. I didn’t know Jaime was dead until like 10 hours later.”

She said she also told police that Robles’ two sons — ages 2 and 3 — were in the room. She also claimed she never saw a gun in the room.

Miami-Dade SRT, the heavily tactical unit called upon for dangerous situations, was called in to serve the warrant. What unfolded next is not entirely clear.

SRT did not use any kind of ruse or negotiations to try and get Robles out, sources said, instead bursting down the door to try and surprise Robles.

Jimenez, the firing officer, was holding a shield and was the first person to enter. A law enforcement source said one body-worn camera’s footage shows Jimenez barking out commands for Robles to show his hands as he was exiting the shower. It did not appear as if he had anything in his hands, the source said, but it’s unclear from the partially obstructed footage if Robles ever tried to reach for the weapon that was on the bathroom sink.

The wailing of a child elsewhere in the room is also heard on the video, the source said.

Tactical experts say such situations — in a closed room, in a hotel with many people — is challenging because officers have to weigh the element of surprise and the safety of bystanders.

“They knew he had a high-powered weapon in the room,” said Keith Taylor, a former New York City police assistant commissioner and current assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. “They could have easily become hostages. They could easily have become victims. He’s a bad dude. And they’re there, unfortunately.”

Two earlier fatal shootings

According to public records, Jimenez has been involved in at least two earlier fatal shootings since 2018, both involving armed suspects.

He was one of two officers who shot and killed Leonardo Cano, who was wanted for the earlier armed kidnapping of his fiancée. After a car chase, Cano crashed in Hialeah, then got out and fired at least 10 rounds at officers — wounding Miami-Dade Officer Paul Fluty, in the back. He survived.

SRT and K9 officers were called to search for Cano, who had been wounded in the gunfight. He was found hiding in a garbage dumpster and Jimenez jumped in to try and arrest him. In the struggle, FDLE agents later determined, Jimenez fired four rounds, while two other officers fired a combined 12 bullets.

Then-Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Emma Lew found bruising “consistent with boot marks” that were “consistent” with Jimenez’s boots on Cano’s face, although she determined it did not contribute to his death.

Officers had yelled out that Cano had a pistol in the dumpster, but it was later found in the grass about four feet away from the bin. Since the the firing officers — Jimenez, Quintero and Sanchez — did not give statements to investigators, “it cannot be determined how the pistol was moved from the dumpster to the grass,” according to a State Attorney’s memo on the case.

Because the firing officers declined to talk to investigators, prosecutors would not rule the shooting legally justified, although they acknowledged there was circumstantial evidence that Cano was legally a threat, especially because he had earlier fired at police and was considered a fleeing felon.

The second fatal shooting bore some similarities to the Miami Springs hotel incident.

It happened in November 2020, when a woman in Northwest Miami-Dade called police to report that her son, Kesner Liberal, had threatened to shoot his younger brother. Officers evacuated the house and “tried without success to coax” Liberal into ditching his weapon and coming out of the house.

Kesner “calmly told [an] officer that he did have a gun, but did not intend to shoot his brother.” Over several hours, SRT arrived and tried to negotiate his exit before deploying a “noxious gas” into the home to force him out. A drone camera — sent in through a broken window — showed Liberal on the bedroom floor, unresponsive, according to a prosecutor’s memo.

Six SRT officers, in a single file line, entered the home — and Jimenez, wielding a shield, was first in line. “He was heard to shout ‘gun, gun, drop it’ among other commands before firing four rounds, all striking Liberal in the head and neck,” the memo said.

“Other than Officer Jimenez, none of the SRT officers were in a position to see what happened before the shots were8 fired,” the report said.

Other officers reported Jimenez said “let me see your hands” — and also “gun, drop the gun” before firing.

Prosecutors noted that there was no evidence that the SRT officers were seeking to actually arrest Liberal. One officer claimed he found Liberal’s cocked handgun under his hand, and after the shooting picked it up and placed it on a windowsill.

“We do not know where the gun was in the moments before the shooting,” the memo acknowledged, adding: “There is no evidence of what occurred in the bedroom that caused Officer Jimenez to fire.”

Prosecutors closed the case, declining to file any criminal charges against Jimenez, but stopping short of declaring it a legally justified use of force. The reason: Jimenez, as before, did not give a statement with his account of what happened.

Police officers, like any citizen, have the right under the law to remain silent when they are under investigation.