When Miami firefighters and police officers arrived at an apartment building Monday morning, they found the complex engulfed in smoke and flames — and a person with a gunshot wound inside.
The discovery added more mystery to the three-alarm fire, which led to the rescue of dozens of people, many of them low-income elderly, from the burning four-story building.
The fire started just after 8:30 a.m. at Temple Court Apartments, 431 NW Third St. When firefighters got there, they found the man shot in the torso, according to radio transmissions.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the person who was shot was taken to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in critical condition. The shooting remains under investigation, and the gunman hasn’t been identified, police say.
The cause of the fire also remains under investigation. Firefighters continued to douse the building late into Monday afternoon. They said the fire was under control and not likely to spread again.
County property records list the building’s owner as Dallas-based AHF Temple Court LLC, which purchased the complex in 2019 for $6.7 million. State corporate records say AHF Temple Court, Atlantic Housing Foundation and Atlantic Housing Management are all run out of the same Dallas office. Temple Court has studio and one-bedroom apartments, 290 to 470 square feet, according to its website.
In a statement, Atlantic Housing Management confirmed that the man shot was a Temple Court employee.
“We are still determining the cause of these events, and we are checking for other injuries,” the statement said. “Police are investigating, and we will help in whatever ways we can. We are working with the Red Cross, which has brought drinks and snacks to help our displaced residents. We are also working to provide meals and a place to stay for those who have been affected.”
Josefa Morales, an 83-year-old woman who has been living in a second-floor apartment for about two years, with rent of about $200 a month, said the man who was shot is a maintenance worker known for helping residents.
“Everybody in the building loves him a lot,” she said.
A chaotic scene
The first calls about the fire came in around 8:15 a.m. Radio transmissions also detailed the panic inside the complex, with residents reporting that they were trapped in their homes. Suarez said firefighters “rescued several people, including several people who were rescued from their balconies.”
“I was in my bathroom, just cleaning, when I heard banging on the door, and it was the firefighters yelling about the fire,” Morales said.
About 40 people, according to fire officials, were rescued from the building, which primarily housed elderly residents. First responders are working with the American Red Cross to account for everyone who lived there.
The Red Cross set up a temporary shelter at a park gymnasium for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. Morales was also at Jose Marti Park, waiting for her son to pick her up.
“I didn’t have time to grab anything,” she said. “But I think I lost everything in the fire.”
Miami Fire Rescue Lt. Pete Sanchez said firefighters “went to a defensive strategy because it’s too dangerous for firefighters to work inside at this point.”
In addition to the man shot, another resident was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, and three firefighters were hospitalized in stable condition “for further evaluation,” Sanchez said.
As for those evacuated from the 61-unit building, Suarez said they would be taken a mile away to Jose Marti Park, 351 SW Fourth Ave., “to give them food and whatever medicine they need.”
“I’ve had an opportunity to speak to them and they seem in relatively good spirits given, obviously, the situation that is incredibly difficult for them and their families,” he said.
Suarez, as summer rain came down on him and gray balls of smoke billowed into the sky in the distance, said: “This is the first three-alarm fire in 25 years.”
Miami Herald staff writer David Goodhue contributed to this report.
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