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Innocent Tourist Gunned Down Protecting His Baby in South Beach, MIAMI

Innocent Tourist Gunned Down Protecting His Baby in South Beach, MIAMI

An innocent father on vacation with his family was randomly shot and killed while protecting his infant son on South Beach. 

It was a beautiful sunny South Florida beach day on Tuesday, Aug 24, when a gunman fired at a pedestrian in front of the Winter Haven Hotel’s entrance on 14th Street on Miami’s famed South Beach. Video shows the pedestrian ran and the gunman turned the corner on Ocean Drive.

Shortly before 6:23 p.m., Marquita Bradford said she saw a man pointing a gun at a toddler at La Cerveceria de Barrio, a Mexican restaurant on Ocean Drive, between 14th Street and 14th Place. She heard another man say, “That’s my son!”

And suddenly, gunfire erupted.  A gamer known as Zwë, who lives in Miami Beach, was skating on the boardwalk when he heard gunshots across Lummus Park. A tourist from Georgia was shooting at a tourist from Colorado.

“If you guys are in Miami Beach, stay away … I see a couple hiding behind a wall screaming for me to jump over with them. Shots started blasting, and then it was just the loudest screaming for 20 minutes. So senseless. I’m praying,” Zwë wrote to his nearly 300,000 followers on Twitter.

In a random attack fueled by an apparent mushroom-induced psychosis, Tamarius Davis, 22, of Norcross, fatally shot Dustin Wakefield, 21, of Castle Rock, according to the Miami Beach Police Department. His one-year-old son and his wife witnessed the murder.

In the aftermath of the tragic murder, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said the disturbing fatal shooting is another tragic sign that the “South Beach Entertainment District” needs to be dismantled.

Although not everyone in the area agrees with Gelber, some owners and managers of restaurants and hotels said they are concerned about crime on Ocean Drive.

“I don’t think it’s safe at times. There is no question during the day, typically is safe, but there is no question it’s not safe at times,” Gelber said.

Videos by witnesses show Davis dancing after the shooting and about four minutes later shouting — “I did it! I did it!” — while officers handcuffed him. A uniformed police officer performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Wakefield. A doctor pronounced him dead at the hospital.

As news of her son’s death reached her, Wakefield’s mother, Lora Wakefield, said through tears that he was a devout Christian. He worked at Design Mechanical, Inc.

“He was a worshipper, the best dad ever,” she said. “We saw miracles. We saw miracles together. His music, his music is amazing.”

Wakefield’s uncle Michael Wakefield shared a fundraiser for Dustin Wakefield’s young family on GoFundMe.

“Dustin loved his family and loved and cared for all he met,” the grieving uncle wrote in a message. “He will be missed in this world. Dustin saved his son and his family.”

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24 Comments

  1. Dan Tyree

    Hood rats are everywhere

    • Ken murdoch

      That’s right Dan. They are a curse on America

    • Alicia

      Yes, they have taken over South Beach for a few years now because they can sell their drugs.

  2. John J

    The liberals who protect and make heros out of low life criminal thieves, drug dealers, addicts and murders have blood on their hands

    • Navvet

      AMEN John. That is so true. At least his family can rest in the knowledge he is in Glory with the Lord.

      • Joseph S. Bruder

        No, he’s dead, and the family will have no rest. All the prayer in the world won’t bring him back. You can take the easy way out and say it’s God’s will, but what really killed him was a chase for profits orchestrated by the NRA for their clients. Instead of thoughts and prayers, we would be better off to do something about 400-500 million weapons available to any nutcase that wants one.

        • Dan Tyree

          So I guess that Joseph wants us people that don’t go around shooting people to turn in our guns. Hell no!!!! We don’t have a gun problem. We have a hood rat problem. I’m one of the people who says out of my cold dead hand and really means it So Joseph if you choose to not own guns I’m ok with that. But keep your fucking hands off mine. Are the punk that shot that man has a criminal record and isn’t allowed by law to possess guns. So do your homework before posting bullshit. And I get damned sick of people asking why anyone should have a certain type of gun. Why should a free American explain why he/she should own anything? And take notice. The shooter was black. The victim was white. The baby that was targeted was white. Don’t you agree that white lives matter ?

        • KEITH

          Nobody said that it was God’s will. The hood rat that killed that man is the spawn of satan.

        • George Houchens

          Easy to blame the NRA while igoring the way our legal system and the judges and lawyers that profit from protecting this kind of trash.

        • John R Wood

          You are extremely ill-informed. The NRA does not sell or distribute firearms. They are in fact the oldest civil rights organization in America. It was formed by ex Union officers who went south to help the freed slaves to acquire fire arms and how to use them to protect themselves from the KKK. They now they fight to protect our Second Amendment rights from the likes of Biden and Palosi.

          • Dan Tyree

            John you and I know that but people on the left thinks that the government will protect them. No way!! I’ve been a proud member of the NRA for 25 years and the organization has never tried to sell me a gun. And the ones that I have were gotten legally and are used lawfully.

        • Anonymous

          If you blame the NRA, Then you are mentaly ill. In other words, you are a moron.

        • FK

          If you blame the NRA, then you are a moron.

  3. Mike

    I suspect the NRA will continue to say “more guns would have saved this guy”. The tragic truth is we have been following their advice for something like 40 years, and yet gun violence continues to increase. Isn’t it time we tried something else than the tired conservative mantra? Instead, the fools in Texas just passed a law to make open carry legal for all-no training required. We as a country need to wake up and realize that we have more gun violence in this country than virtually anywhere in the world-and it is directly related to the fact that so many people have guns. Incidents like these are tragic, but we simply don’t have the will to fight the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby..

    • Dan Tyree

      So Mike doesn’t want me to have a gun. So come and take it. But be careful. The barrel might be hot. I wouldn’t want to see you get burned

      • Mike

        You’re right dan, I do want to come and get your gun and every other gun I can get my hands on. Guns should be for military use only. However, being a pragmatist, I know that’s not going to happen. So how about we try regulating them as we do the ability to drive a car? Guns are far more dangerous. But you idiots won’t let that happen either. So we just keep allowing folks to be gunned down. Disgusting and stupid-but that’s the name of the game in the US…

        • Dan Tyree

          The gun industry is one of the most regulated industry in America. I would love to see guns taken from people who shouldn’t have them. But I know from knowledge, not hearsay, that the overwhelming majority of gun owners don’t shoot people. The vast majority of the shootings are done by people already forbidden by law to have guns. Sure, people get pissed off and react violently that has never done that before. But people get stabbed and whacked with machetes in countries where guns are mostly forbidden. One of the first things that Hitler did was disarm the people. I say that if someone misused a gun give them a hell of a prison sentence. Even if they only robbed someone and didn’t fire a shot. I read the news and over 90% of the time a shooter already has a felony record. In today’s times law abiding people need guns more than ever and we will never surrender them. Especially with morons wanting to defund law enforcement

        • Amanda Williams

          If they decide to make owning any kind of gun illegal, that’s not going to stop people from getting shot and dying because then the law-abiding people will have no way to defend themselves or their loved ones and it’ll just be the criminals who will have guns on the streets. That doesn’t sound so smart in my opinion.

    • J

      So disarm Responsible gun owners? I c u have only a double digit IQ.
      Ur a Nazi too or a wt supremis

    • Anonymous

      How about blaming the politicians and judges and other spin doctors that blame the NRA instead of themselves for allowing trash like this murderer to live. Time to restore the hanging tree.

  4. John R Wood

    What happended to my comment??????????????????????

    • Mac EWING

      Mike your hard on for gun owners is too stupid to consider. Only the military have guns? Seriously? Great idea. Then a police state would soon be coming. And good luck defunding the police then. If you leftist would stop and think about what you say, you would cut your own throats

    • Joseph S. Bruder

      This site has a lot of problems. Sometimes I get a message that my post is “under review for approval” or something like that (no censorship here, no sir-eee). Sometimes it takes 8 hours (or more) to get posted. Sometimes you hit the send button and they just … disappear. There was one column last week that had about 15 or 20 messages, and after I replied to one, everything past message 7 was gone, for a couple of days. Sometimes, it will lose the name and post with just “Anonymous”. Sucks, but believe it or not, it was worse a year ago…

      I post sometimes on another site, and they will open a box “are you sure you want to leave?” if you accidentally hit the back button or something randomly happens before you submit your post. Many times I’ve retyped and posted here again because I thought it was lost, only to have both show up…

      • JENNIFER

        Who cares? Your posts are stupid and doesn’t do anything but piss off the real Americans Supporting a sexual pervert and groper like Joe Biden destroys your credibility