Former cop’s standoff with police at Southwest Miami-Dade home ends with her arrest

A tense overnight standoff between a former cop and police sharpshooters and negotiators ended early Friday afternoon, when the ex-officer who had been barricaded in a home in Southwest Miami-Dade for over 12 hours was arrested by her former colleagues.

Police said Evelyn Fernandez, a former Miami-Dade police lieutenant who was fired about seven years ago after a series of bizarre domestic violence incidents with her former boss, became involved in a lengthy standoff with police after she fired several rounds from a home early Thursday evening.

The chaotic situation began in the area of Southwest 282 Street and 167th Avenue around 6:30 p.m. Thursday when police responded to reports of shots fired and a 911 call. When they arrived, a man who police say is Fernandez’s ex-boyfriend told them she shot at him as he sat in his car.

Although he was not hit or injured, several bullets struck his car, Miami-Dade Police Assistant Director Rosana Cordero-Stutz told reporters after Fernandez’s arrest Friday afternoon.

Using several leads, officers tracked Fernandez down to a home a few miles away at Southwest 174th Street and 142nd Place. When police made contact with Ferndandez, she barricaded herself inside the home with several other people inside. She was armed.

Those people eventually left the home unharmed, but Fernandez remained inside, Cordero-Stutz said.

Heavily armed members of the Special Response Team arrived, as did police negotiators, said Cordero-Stutz. Not only did Ferndandez not come outside, she fired several more shots from inside the house, police said.

“There were moments when she appeared she was going to be cooperative, and then she would not be cooperative,” Cordero-Stutz said. “That’s one of the reasons we have been on the scene so long.”

Cordero-Stutz did not release details of the arrest, but officers went into the home and arrested Fernandez in the early afternoon.

“She resisted arrest until the last moment that we placed handcuffs on her,” Cordero-Stutz said.

Police did not release the names of the owners of the home where the standoff took place, nor their relationship to Fernandez. The man she initially shot at Thursday evening is also a former law enforcement officer, Cordero-Stutz said, but she did not say in which department he served, adding it was not Miami-Dade.

The successful outcome came after 12 hours of fervid negotiations involving dozens of officers and negotiators who deployed high-tech electronic gadgetry like aerial drones and heat sensors to acquire information.

“It’s disturbing and it’s sad that a former police officer is shooting at other police officers,” said Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association.

The large police presence in the Richmond West neighborhood just west of Zoo Miami shook up several residents who were displaced from their homes for hours while police blocked off the street to keep people safe from gunfire.

As dozens of police officers, including members of the Special Response Team, gathered outside the home, about 10 residents lounged on a grassy right of way on 172nd Street. They hadn’t been allowed back for hours, said Carlos Gonzalez, 54, who lives next to the home where the standoff took place.

Several sources confirmed to the Miami Herald as the incident unfolded that Fernandez, a former Miami-Dade Police lieutenant who has been in the news before, was the woman who barricaded herself in the home.

She is the ex-girlfriend of former Miami-Dade Mayor and Police Director Carlos Alvarez. The two got into several domestic spats that grabbed media attention.

In 2016, Alvarez was arrested on domestic violence charges after Fernandez filed a domestic battery charge against him, accusing Fernandez of grabbing and shaking her, pinning her against a wall and spitting on her. She blamed his mood swings on steroids. Alvarez was a competitive bodybuilder.

Three months later, she was arrested and charged with burglary and criminal mischief for breaking into his Coral Gables apartment. All the charges were eventually dropped. The duo broke up. And Fernandez was fired from the police force about a year later.

Friday’s standoff comes four months after Miami-Dade County’s former top officer, Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III, who was considered the top contender for the county sheriff, shot himself in Tampa after an argument with his wife at a hotel.

Ramirez survived, but announced last month that he was dropping out of the sheriff’s race.

Cordero-Stutz said Friday’s incident is another reminder that “mental health is at the forefront of this profession every day.”

“We have a community we have to think of as well in situations like this,” she said.