The police chief of Miami-Dade County shot and killed himself on Sunday night, but not before calling Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and offering his resignation. In the call, he reportedly recalled an argument with his wife.
“He felt a great deal of guilt. After Alfredo (Freddy) Ramirez seriously injured himself while leaving a Tampa hotel with his wife Jody, Levine Cava held her first press conference to address the public. “He said he was on the road headed for Miami,”
Levine Cava said she would not discuss the conversation she had with Miami-Dade sheriff candidate Ramirez on Sunday night, including Ramirez’s account of the events that led Tampa police to his hotel room earlier that evening. However, she stressed that Ramirez was distraught at the events.
Voici what he told her: “There was an incident at the hotel in Tampa,” she added. He was sorry for his actions because he knew he had messed up. Levine Cava did not accept the resignation, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.
The tweet below verifies the news:
The director of the Miami-Dade Police Department offered to resign his position hours before shooting himself, the county’s mayor said. Details of the conversation were released as he was in a Tampa hospital, continuing to recover from the shooting. https://t.co/p8JBu8r2AN
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 26, 2023
Levine Cava claimed at the press conference that she and the other person agreed to talk again on Monday. I told him we’d get together, that I’d phone him first thing in the morning. Police say Ramirez, a senior deputy for Levine Cava and a candidate for county sheriff, shot himself in the head on the side of Interstate 75 late Sunday night after an altercation with Tampa police.
He is still being treated in a Tampa hospital. After receiving a call about a man with a pistol in the hotel, police arrived and located Ramirez. After the mayor missed a call from Ramirez at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, the mayor and Levine Cava spoke once, at roughly 8:30 p.m., according to the individual briefed on the call.
On Wednesday, Christian Ulvert, the campaign manager for both Democrats, acknowledged that Ramirez had called him. Between the altercation at the hotel and the shooting on I-75, Ulvert claims to have spoken with Ramirez three times.
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He claimed that Ramirez had called him to tell him that he had an argument with his wife that did not become violent but would still hurt his candidacy. He explained that he and his spouse had an argument. He described it as “not physical,” Ulvert remarked. He felt terrible shame. “This is not me,” he remarked.
According to Ulvert, Ramirez did not provide details regarding the altercation, and he did not inquire more. “I told him, let’s meet Monday morning to discuss what happened and build a plan from there,” Ulvert added. He agreed to meet with me on Monday, and so we did.
Despite their brief conversation, Levine Cava made an effort that night to reconnect with Ramirez. The county mayor called and texted Ramirez in the hours before he allegedly shot himself in the head, although it is unclear why. According to the source, neither the phone calls nor the text messages were returned.
Levine Cava flew to the Tampa hospital where Ramirez was being hospitalized just hours after Ramirez accidentally shot himself. According to the report, she arrived in Tampa at about 2:30 in the morning.
Levine Cava held a press conference at County Hall at 11 a.m. on Wednesday to discuss Ramirez’s condition and to formally introduce the people taking his positions on an interim basis: Stephanie Daniels as head of Miami-Dade police and J.D. Patterson as chief safety officer, a post Ramirez also held, which placed him in charge of the county’s Fire Rescue Department.
The surgery he had on Monday went well, and his status is stable, as Levine Cava reported. He is steadily regaining strength as his recovery progresses. She also stressed the risks to officers’ mental health in the line of duty.
“This incident is also a tragic reminder of the critical role that mental health plays in our law enforcement officers,” she said during the County Hall press conference, surrounded by uniformed county police executives and commanders. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details,” and the truth is that “these jobs are very demanding, stressful, and emotionally taxing.”
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