A man is lucky to be alive after a Miami police officer imagined a gunshot being fired from inside a hotel room, sparking a four-hour standoff that forced the evacuation of hotel guests, the closure of roads, the lockdown of schools and the shutdown of local businesses.
When the man finally opened his hotel door, the SWAT team rushed in and found no gun.
But they are still searching for evidence that a gun was fired from inside the room, according to the Miami Herald:
What police had not yet said officially: The initial call of shots fired came from one of their own.
“An officer reported gunfire after he got there. Police didn’t find any evidence of gunfire. The initial call was just to remove the guy from the room,” said a law enforcement source familiar with the incident.
Deputy Miami Police Chief Ron Papier said the department had to deploy personnel as if there were a major threat.
“We needed to respond as if there was actually someone in the room firing a gun,” he said.
By Friday afternoon police hadn’t released the name of the man taken into custody. They hadn’t found any evidence of a weapon or that a weapon had been fired. No one was injured. The man inside the hotel room, according to Miami police spokeswoman Kiara Delva, was undergoing a psychological evaluation.
“They’re still searching for bullet holes,” she said. “At this time there are no charges.”
The incident took place Friday after Miami police were called to a Hilton Hotel about a man who had overstayed his visit after spending his 19th night at the hotel, which is routine in Miami.
But what is not routine is how the call turned into a four-hour standoff because a cop thought he heard a gunshot.
Fortunately, the man was not shot and killed as Daniel Shaver was in Arizona after police were called to his hotel room in response to a call that he had a gun. It was a pellet gun and it wasn’t even on him when they killed him. But still, the cop walked.
