Police Identify Victims In Deadly Palmetto Expressway Shooting
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami-Dade police have released the names of the men who were shot, one fatally, on the Palmetto Expressway.
Twenty-year-old Timothy Starks, who sitting in the passenger seat of the red Nissan Altima, was killed when a hail of gunfire came through the windshield.
Records from the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections show that Starks bonded out of jail about an hour before the deadly shooting. He had been arrested for carrying a concealed firearm.
The driver, 20-year-old Dante Collins Banks, was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital where he's listed in stable condition.
The Florida Highway Patrol said the shooting happened Wednesday around 3 p.m. in the northbound lanes of State Road 826 in the area of Okeechobee Road, before the exit to NW 103rd Street.
The Nissan slammed into a concrete barrier wall after both Starks and Banks were shot.
"The only information we have regarding the subject's vehicle was that it was a dark-colored vehicle," said Miami-Dade Detective Angel Rodriguez. "That's why we need the community's assistance to be able to determine what make and model and what direction of travel the vehicle fled."
He said they have not been able to determine yet whether the shooting was targeted.
The northbound lanes were closed for about 11 hours and reopened just before 11 p.m.
"I was on my way home from work, I knew I wanted to stop at the store, and the traffic was just bumper to bumper, people were trying to get in and get out, it was insane," said one woman who got stuck in the massive traffic jam during the investigation.
Anyone with information should call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS (8477).