What We Know About the Teen Accused of Ambushing Cops in Miami

Just before 10 PM on Monday, a gray Dodge minivan pulled into a dark street near the Annie Coleman Gardens, a public housing complex in a predominantly poor, black neighborhood four miles east of Miami International Airport known as Brownsville. Inside, Terence White and Charles Woods, a pair of veteran Miami-Dade Police undercover detectives working a gang detail with the feds, focused their eyes on a suspicious car that had just parked there.

Suddenly, four men approached the van and at least two began shooting at the detectives, according to Miami-Dade Police. Bullets struck the front passenger and side doors, punching holes through metal and shattering the glass windows. At least one officer returned fire through the van's windshield, according to the Miami Herald.

When the smoke cleared, nearby police in a black pickup truck rushed to the scene and placed White, who had been shot in the bicep, and Woods, who was also struck, into the truck's bed. They whisked their injured colleagues to the nearby Jackson Ryder Trauma Center. But even as both officers suffered relatively minor injuries, the brazen attack set off a furious manhunt that ended early Wednesday morning with the arrest of 19-year-old Damian Antwan Thompson, an alleged "associate" of 13th Avenue Hot Boyz, a Brownsville gang that has been packing serious firepower for close to a decade.

Tangela Sears, a community activist who leads the group Parents of Murdered Kids in Miami-Dade, told me that 13th Avenue Hot Boyz and other gangs are obviously responsible for a large number of violent shootings involving adolescents in Miami's inner-city neighborhoods.

"Without a doubt, they are part of the problem," Sears said. "If you shoot at law enforcement, you will shoot at anybody. We see it everyday. I get a text every time there is a shooting."

According to Miami-Dade Police, law enforcement officials zeroed in on Thompson following several tips to the CrimeStoppers police line pointing to the accused gang banger as the shooter. Woods also identified Thompson as the assailant and said that his partner, White, had recently arrested the teen on a gun possession charge, according to the March 29 arrest report.

Thompson was apprehended at a Hyatt Hotel near the airport where cops found him hiding underneath bedsheets, according to the arrest report. Thompson allegedly yelled, "I'm going to kill both of y'all" as officers struck him to "gain compliance" until he was handcuffed. Thompson has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest with violence.

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Back in 2010, a Miami Police-led operation ended with the arrests of 14 individuals, including members of 13th Avenue and their rival gang the 13th Court Cowboys. Cops also confiscated 31 firearms, including sawed off shotguns and a TEC-9, which then-Miami-Police Chief Miguel Exposito displayed on a large table for reporters. Timothy Smith, an alleged leader of 13th Avenue, was slapped with multiple illegal firearms charges and allegedly sold 17 guns to undercover officers.

"That gang and another gang on the other side of Northwest 12th Avenue are always at each other and may be responsible for a lot of drive-by shootings that we have seen lately," said John Rivera, president of the police union representing Miami-Dade Police officers. "It is easier to buy a firearm for juveniles than it is to buy a pack of cigarettes for them. There is a proliferation of guns, especially in that general area."

It is still not clear how—or even whether —Thompson is associated with any gangs. A Miami-Dade Police spokesperson did not respond to questions about his affiliation or lack thereof prior to publication. According to Miami-Dade County criminal court records, the suspect was arrested last November for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, only for the case to be dropped. Two months later, he was arrested again—this time for allegedly carrying a concealed weapon. The arresting officer: Terence White, whom Thompson acknowledged knowing while being questioned by cops early Wednesday, according to the arrest report.

According to the Herald, White was working plain-clothes duty during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade in Liberty City back in January when "an anonymous source" identified Thompson as a "wanted subject." But when White and other officers approached the teen, Thompson took off running and dropped a dark-colored 9mm Glock from his waistband, the paper reported. He is scheduled for trial on the gun charge on June 12.

"There is some belief that [Thompson] knew these were police officers and purposely shot into their vehicle," Rivera said. "This is an individual who the system hasn't done much to him. It's a free ticket for him."

While cops are inclined to point their fingers at a possible gang-banger, Thompson's quick arrest has left community activists like Sears asking why law enforcement doesn't seem to expend the same amount of police resources when black children are the victims. Between 2006 and 2016, an average of 30 youths were killed annually in Miami-Dade, according to a Miami Herald investigation last year. More than 75 percent were black.

"What is the difference between a child shot and killed in the streets with an officer hit with non-life threatening injuries?" Sears asked. "We are constantly hearing that they are not able to do these things because they need more resources. But when a cop is shot, the resources come from out of nowhere. It had a lot of families angry yesterday and this morning."

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