Miami cop shoots man armed with knife near Jackson Memorial Hospital, police say

A Miami officer shot a man armed with a knife near Jackson Memorial Hospital on Friday morning, according to authorities.

The shooting, at Northwest 17th Street and Eighth Avenue, happened shortly before 10 a.m., Miami police said.

Officer Michael Vega, a police spokesman, said reports came in about two men fighting, and one of them had a knife.

When police arrived at 727 NW 17th St., about two blocks east of where the man was shot moments later, he was still armed.

“He didn’t cooperate with police so one of our officers shot him once,” Vega told reporters Friday at a press briefing near the hospital.

Law enforcement sources said officers also shot the man with a stun gun.

The wounded man ran to the emergency wing of the Miami-Dade County public hospital, where police ultimately detained him. He was being treated at the hospital Friday afternoon and was in stable condition, police said.

The hospital remained open, but police shut down several streets in the area for several hours.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating.

What happened before the shooting?

A nun at Missionaries Charity of Mother Teresa, located near Jackson, told the Miami Herald two men were arguing inside the building, where homeless men and women were being fed, and were told to take it outside.

They did, and that’s when the fight began, said the nun, who did not give her name.

Moments later, police got a call about “a violent dispute” involving a man armed with a knife near the Archdiocese of Miami charity.

Tommy Ruble, 46, was sitting in the passenger seat of a Honda Pilot parked on Northwest 17th Street when he saw about five police officers running after a man holding a knife.

As the man ran down the sidewalk next to his car, Ruble jumped from the passenger’s seat into the driver’s and called his wife to warn her about the man heading in her direction.

‘It was scary’

His wife, Rebecca Fields, 46, was on the first floor of a medical building at Northwest 17th Street and Eighth Avenue when Ruble called her.

Seconds later, she saw the same man running.

“He had a huge knife,” Fields said. “It was scary because he kept going and I didn’t know where he was going.”

She said she witnessed when the officer shot him.

“They were trying to get him to put down the knife, but he wouldn’t do it,” Fields said.

Witnesses are encouraged to call the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at 800-226-3023 or the Miami Police Department at 305-579-6111.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.