Teens arrested after killing dealership security officer
Miami Dade FL May 26 2017
Miami-Dade police officers responded to to Reny’s Auto Sales in the 22000 block of South Dixie Highway about 1:30 a.m. May 8 and found a fence had been damaged.
A vehicle appeared to have been used to knock it down.
Officers entered the property and found a security officer lying in a pool of blood, deceased and determined that he had been shot in the head.
Police have now arrested two juveniles in the murder.
The teens have been identified as Derrick Warren, 15, and Edward Lopez, 15, police said.
Police say that a casing discovered next to the victim, helped solve the murder.
Just hours before the murder, at 11:44 p.m. on May 7, Miami-Dade police were called to a hit-and-run at a Freedom gas station.
During that investigation, officers found an abandoned green Kia Soul with no tags. The vehicle had markings indicating it was from Reny’s Auto Sales.
Officers then spotted a red Kia Soul with no tags and markings from Reny’s traveling northbound on South Dixie Highway.
The driver refused to stop, police said, and soon after crashed near Southwest 124 Street and Southwest 72nd Avenue.
Warren was taken to Kendall Regional Medical Center for treatment and Lopez was taken into custody.
A 9 mm firearm was also found inside the vehicle.
Warren told police he and Lopez were walking by Reny’s Auto Sales and spoke to the victim, who was a security guard at the sale center.
When Warren asked how much a yellow car was the victim told them to leave and cussed at the teens according to a police report.
Lopez said that’s when he went after the victim with a metal stick, police said. Warren told police that he pulled Lopez away and the two left.
About a half hour later, the pair came back to Reny’s Auto Sales and confronted the victim about his comments.
Lopez told police that he and Warren had seen the victim inside the dealership office and planned to attack him with an empty beer bottle and place him in a chokehold, an arrest report said. Then the pair wanted to steal cars and money from the lot.
The victim told Warren that he had a gun, the police report said, and Warren disarmed him by grabbing the gun and placing it in his pocket.
The victim then begged the teens to leave and attempted to arm himself with a knife, but Warren grabbed it, the report said.
The victim also refused to open the safe on the demands of Warren and Lopez, police said. He tried to escape through a front door, but Warren pushed him, slammed the door closed and said “You ain’t going anywhere.”
The teens also moved a couch and a fan in front of the door and bound the door with an extension cord, barricading it and thus not allowing the victim to leave, police said.
Warren then began to stab the victim several times, police said, and the victim fell to the ground, bleeding.
Warren then told Lopez to shoot the victim with a gun that he’d found, police said.
Lopez wiped off the gun with a glove in his right hand and fired one shot at the victim, police said. Warren then took the gun and shot the victim two more times. He then picked up a rock and began striking the victim in the head.
Warren began ransacking the business and located a box of keys, police said. While they were sifting through the keys, the teens continued to strike the victim in the head with fists.
Lopez and Warren stole four vehicles from the dealership, police said.
Warren ultimately crashed one of the vehicles, which was how police caught the pair.
When asked why he never called for police or paramedics to help the victim, Warren said he didn’t want to help the victim because the victim needed to learn to watch what he said to people, police said.
Warren was arrested on charges of first-degree murder, armed robbery, burglary and false imprisonment. Edward was arrested on charges of first-degree murder, robbery, burglary and false imprisonment.
