TSA officer murdered after leaving job at Miami International Airport
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. May 6 2021– Miami-Dade detectives are investigating the murder of a 24-year-old officer who worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration.
A shooter in a dark four-door Nissan killed Leshonte Jones on Monday at the Coral Bay Cove apartments in south Miami-Dade County’s Naranja neighborhood, police said.
“We are trying to figure out what was the motive here,” Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said. “We are trying to figure out what caused this senseless violence.”
Jones’s three-year-old daughter was injured during the shooting at 25801 S. Dixie Highway. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel took her to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. According to Zabaleta, she was in stable condition.
“I am shocked and deeply saddened at the senseless act of violence that took a young, vibrant officer away from her family and away from us way too soon,” Daniel Ronan, a TSA federal security director, said in a statement.
Jones was returning home after working a shift as a TSA officer at Miami International Airport.
“Words just cannot properly convey the immense loss all of us are feeling at this moment,” Ronan said.
Detectives are asking anyone with information about the fatal shooting to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
“Give us any type of description,” Zavaleta said. “It doesn’t matter how small it may be investigators can use every piece of information in order to hopefully come to a closure.”
