Woman in car with daughter as gunfire broke out in Miami-Dade warehouse area: ‘I got her out and we ran’ (2025)

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – People working in a southwest Miami-Dade warehouse district described hearing a barrage of bullets as an active shooter opened fire Thursday, injuring multiple people.

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The shooting happened shortly before 1:30 p.m. in the 7300 Southwest 45th Street.

Several businesses are in the area. The shooting came during a scary time: Thursday was Take Your Child to Work Day. There were also parents and children in the area for a cheer practice. Authorities have not provided ages of any victims or said exactly where the shooting happened.

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Lidia Amoretti-Morgado, who usually speaks to media outlets as a public information officer for Jackson Memorial Hospital, spoke to Local 10 News reporter Rosh Lowe as a mom.

She described being stuck in her car with her daughter Camila, about to attend cheer practice, and dog Scarlet as shots rang out and deputies swarmed the area.

“She was about to get out of the car when the shooting happened, I just got surrounded by police officers,” Amoretti-Morgado said.

Camila, 10, said she heard gunshots.

“Like my mom told me to duck down, and I heard ‘duck down,’ so, like, I ducked down, I tried to put my dog’s head under the car, because, like, you know, so that she can duck down too, because I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

Amoretti-Morgado described the events as an “out-of-body experience.”

“Is this really happening?” she said she thought to herself.

She said a cheer dad, known affectionately as Captain Lou, got her and Camila out of the car.

“He came down, like, crawling down. Basically got me out of the car,” Amoretti-Morgado said. “I left the car on, and then I went around. I got her out and we ran.”

“Because if we would have stayed, God knows what would have happened,” she added.

Lowe later asked, “In that one moment when you’re crawling, did you think you were gonna get out of this?”

“I did. I can’t explain it, but I did, even when the shooting was happening, I don’t know. I just felt like we’re gonna be OK,” Amoretti-Morgado said. “It was scary. I didn’t know how it’s gonna play out, but I knew we were gonna be OK. And again, thanks to that, that Captain (Lou). I love him.”

A mother with her son while working at a nearby business also spoke to Lowe.

She said she didn’t hear gunshots, but got a call from a loved one warning her about what was going on.

Woman describes scary moment with son:

“I just ran and locked the front door and we stayed inside until we made sure that everything was safe,” she said. “We’re OK now, but, yeah, I was scared. It was scary for a minute.”

Others in the area also heard gunfire.

One man, a furniture store worker, told Lowe that he heard about eight shots.

“It’s all like warehouses. So I’m thinking it’s a muffler,” he said. “We hear it again. It’s like, ‘boom, boom, boom’ again. And we looked at each other, we said, ‘Oh, no, that is not a muffler.”

Describing the police response, he said he heard law enforcement officers “coming fast, police from everywhere different like cities in Miami, or all coming, all forces from everywhere.”

Nearby worker describes lockdown, man describes gunfire:

Rosie Riguero, a worker at a nearby business, described going on a lockdown as she was at her desk after seeing a swarm of officers from her window.

“(There were) police everywhere, helicopters. I said, let me turn on the internet see what’s going on, because nobody knew what’s going on,” she said. “So we started shutting all our doors, telling our clients, our store was full of clients, ‘Please do not go outside,’ shutting doors. People got nervous.”

Another worker in the area said, “It was pretty scary. It was pretty scary because I was outside, went to get something from my car and all of a sudden, there were cop cars coming from all of the directions.”

Woman describes scene: