A Miami Gardens woman has been arrested and accused of attempted murder and kidnapping nearly a month after another woman was found with multiple gunshot wounds on Interstate 195 in Miami Beach, officials said Wednesday.
Latifah Mercedes Green, 33, is accused of being part of a group that carried out the vicious beating of a female victim, who was then held in a car for over an hour, dragged to the side of the Julia Tuttle Causeway and shot three times, authorities said.
The indecent unfolded in the early hours of Sept. 10, NBC Miami reported. According to the arrest report, Green and a group of unnamed co-defendants arrived at a residence in Miami Gardens, where a friend of the victim lived, just before 2 a.m.
After asking for the victim by name, the group confronted her about drugs, money and a stolen gun, according to officials. The victim denied any involvement and closed the door.
The group then returned with at least three other men and forced their way into the residence, police said, according to local station WPLG.
One of the men, who was armed, accused the victim of stealing a gun from him. After asking the victim where the missing gun was, he became violent and hit her “several times” in the face with both a gun and his fists.
He then handed the gun to another man, who used it to continue the beating.
Green also joined in, hitting the victim over the head with a bottle of Tequila, the Miami Herald reported.
The victim was then “dragged out of the home by her hair” and forced into a Ford F-150.
According to police, she directed the group to her father’s home, falsely claiming he had the gun, in a desperate attempt to escape her attackers.
But when the father denied any knowledge of the missing gun, the group got back in the car and drove the victim to the causeway that connects Midtown Miami and Miami Beach.
Shortly after 3 a.m., they stopped on the highway and dragged the victim out of the car, then shot her three times and fled the scene. She managed to walk along the causeway looking for help, and a passerby eventually spotted her and called police at around 3:45 a.m.
The victim was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition, but remarkably survived.
Two days after the incident, she told investigators she knew all of the alleged assailants, except for Green.
Green, who denies being present for the shooting, was arrested Tuesday and faces charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and home invasion.
She’s being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and her bond has yet to be determined.
Several suspects remain at large, officials said.