Shot in the chest at point-blank range, security guard Edecio Castillo spent just two days in the hospital with a bullet wound.
”It’s a miracle I’m alive,” said Castillo, 60, a father of five. “It was so close that I breathed in the gun powder.”
His life spared, Castillo is helping Miami-Dade detectives hunt for the attackers who shot him Saturday near Miami Lakes.
Leads are scarce, detectives say.
Castillo was patrolling in a golf cart Saturday at about 10:25 p.m. at Las Villas shopping center, 4705 NW 183rd St. A Chinese restaurant had just closed.
A dark-skinned man, speaking Spanish, flagged him down. He asked for directions to Hialeah. Castillo began explaining how.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow lurking behind him. Castillo accelerated the cart — a second man appeared, firing some three rounds at close range, hitting Castillo once in the chest, police said.
The bullet exited from his arm.
”Before I die, I’m going to shoot back,” Castillo remembered thinking.
Castillo fired a volley of some six rounds; he believes one man may have been wounded. The attackers ran away. Castillo collapsed in front of Topazio Cafeteria Restaurant, and was later sent to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
”He’s lucky to be alive. My gut instinct tells me they were going to rob him but they never got to that point,” said Miami-Dade Detective Jorge Romero, of the Northwest district.
The first suspect was described only as a man in his 30s, about six-foot tall with an Afro haircut.
Castillo, who plans to return to work at another shopping center, is one of at least two private security guards shot in recent months.
On March 30, security guard Carlos Montes was shot at a North Miami-Dade Winn-Dixie when two teens tried to rob his gun. In the struggle, Montes shot and killed Jermaine Cobb, 19. A second teen, Brainely Morelus, 18, was arrested in June for his role in the robbery attempt, police said.
Get news alerts, officer down, weather emergency news in your mailbox! Sign up;adminassist@privateofficer.com
Join us at www.myspace.com/privateofficernews
Come be part of our social network! www.privateofficer.com
