The suspects ''fired several shots at them with a high-powered weapon,''

A 22-year-old man sitting in a car with his girlfriend and 2-month-old baby was shot in the neck in a drive-by Tuesday, police said.A car, possibly a gold Saturn, with several men inside drove up to the couple at Northwest Second Avenue and 53rd Street.
One man got out and opened fire just before 3 p.m.
The suspects ''fired several shots at them with a high-powered weapon,'' said Napier Velazquez, a department spokesman.The victim put the car in reverse out of the area and then ran inside the nearby Chef Creole restaurant at 200 Northwest 54th St., where people called 911.The man was taken to Ryder Trauma Center in very critical condition, Velazquez said.''Given what happened, it's a miracle that the child and the girlfriend weren't hit,'' said Martha Carbana, a department spokeswoman.
Police did not have a description of the shooter or shooters and did not know a motive.

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Gun used to shoot Miami-Dade Officer Roberto Gonzalez had been stolen

The gun believed to have been used by an ex-felon to shoot Miami-Dade Officer Roberto Gonzalez had been stolen last year in a burglary in South Miami-Dade, according to an arrest report released Monday.Police found the Heckler & Koch .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol soon after Gonzalez, 31, was wounded in South Miami Heights late Sunday.Detectives arrested Jhonnell Harris, 20, of 11611 SW 180th St., Sunday night and charged him with attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and theft.He was booked Monday morning into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Tracing the gun's serial number, Miami-Dade homicide detectives found the gun had been reported stolen on July 21, 2007. The bureau declined to release the burglary report because of the ongoing investigation.Gonzalez, a rookie with 10 months on the force, was rushed by helicopter to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami. He underwent surgery Monday.
''He is recovering now with his family,'' said Miami-Dade Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman.Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez plans to visit Gonzalez on Tuesday. The mayor's chief of staff, Denis Morales, visited Gonzalez on Sunday night.
''He was in good spirits. He was more concerned with the apprehension of the subject,'' Morales said. 'He told me, `I did my best to stay with [Harris] as long as I could.' ''
The shooting prompted renewed calls by the police union to add officers, increase pay and prosecute criminals with more vigor.
''It really truly is a war zone out there. In my 31 years, I've never seen it this bad,'' said Police Benevolent Association President John Rivera.
The shooting comes less than two months after Miami Detective James Walker was shot and killed in North Miami Beach, a shooting investigators believe was a case of mistaken identity.In September, Officer Jose Somohano -- like Gonzalez, of the Cutler Ridge police district -- was shot and killed by a man wielding an assault rifle in a firefight. Three other officers were wounded.In the arrest report released Monday, investigators said Gonzalez was investigating a burglary at a South Miami Heights warehouse, 10440 SW 186th Ter., about 8:15 p.m. Sunday.
Gonzalez then saw Harris sprint west on Southwest 186th Lane. The rookie gave chase, radioing the man's description over the radio.Harris turned around, wielding the pistol, and fired several rounds. Gonzalez was hit twice, never returning fire, according to the report.A witness saw Harris, who was wearing dark clothes, running from the warehouse district.Fellow Miami-Dade officers from the Cutler Ridge district collared Harris in a U-Gas parking lot.Officers found the H&K handgun in a trash bin and several casings on the roadway nearby.Harris has been in trouble with the law before.
In 2005, he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon. In December 2005, Harris was arrested on charges of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, grand theft and criminal mischief. He received probation, which was later revoked.
The next year, he was convicted of third-degree grand theft and marijuana possession.
Last year, he was arrested in an armed robbery case, but the charge was later dropped when detectives realized the actual culprit was his younger brother

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Jorge “Rivi” Ayala

contract killer Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, Cocaine Cowboys director Billy Corben says: “He told me where there is a body buried in Miami, by the Florida turnpike. It’s all developed now, malls and condominiums. He knows where all the bodies are buried. We told the police. I think he told the police too. I just don’t think they care.”
Now serving three life sentences for 12 counts of murder, Rivi is a chillingly cool customer. He affably reels off the names of the victims he dispatched as if he were running through a shopping list. “The guy is one of the most pleasant interview subjects, the most laid-back, easy-going, polite, friendly and simple to deal with. But we’d be sitting there in an interview and you would have to kick yourself in the head to remind yourself what it is that this guy is talking about. He might as well be talking about the weather outside. But he’s talking about murdering women and children.”
Rivi was, for a time, the hit-man of choice for Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow. Griselda was the grande dame of the Miami cocaine business, a Colombian mother of three, of impoverished origins, who slaughtered and intimidated her way to the top of a billion-dollar industry. She is a central character in this movie, the most deadly figure in a story in which the bodies are stacked like dominos. Conspicuous by her absence as an interviewee, she is one of the few key survivors of the era whom the film-makers were unable to coax before the lens. “Her release was imminent at that point, as was her deportation. I think she has changed her mind since, because we have been reapproached,” Corben says.
Rapid-fire editing unleashes an onslaught of information. This is documentary-making for ADD sufferers and has now inspired a feature film to star Mark Wahlberg, based on the the drug dealer Jon Roberts, featured in Cocaine Cowboys.
Corben, a Miami native with a conversational style like a runaway train, acknowledges the drug’s influence on Cocaine Cowboys’ aesthetic. “My intended effect was that after this movie, you felt like you had been on a bender.” Besides Griselda and Rivi, the key characters in the film are Roberts and Mickey Munday. They are the “cowboys” of the title, two outlaws who imported but didn’t sell the drugs. The way they tell it, their clever smuggling methods transformed the fortunes of the once sleepy backwater of Miami.
Corben’s memories of growing up in Miami during the cocaine-fuelled 1980s are of nightly news stories with a body count to rival a small war, and an awful lot of money. “I remember being in this working-class neighbourhood and everybody was doing very well. Whatever business you were in, the city was flush with so much cash that it trickled down, sort of a Reagan theory of economics. The trickle-down theory worked as long as you had successful drug king-pins in the community.”

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