Man fires shots from Miami airport parking garage; no injuries, felony charge filed

A man armed with a handgun fired four rounds from the top level of a parking garage at Miami International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, sending travelers scrambling for cover and prompting a heavy law enforcement response before deputies arrested him within minutes, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office.

No one was hurt. The suspect, 31-year-old Francisco Ivan Mendiola, was taken into custody on the second floor of the airport's short-term parking garage and now faces a felony charge along with three misdemeanors, prosecutors said in court Thursday.

Gunfire near a crowded terminal

Deputies with the sheriff's office Airport District responded to reports of shots fired at about 4:05 p.m. Wednesday and, upon arriving, saw Mendiola sitting on the parking garage's second floor loading a magazine into a firearm before he opened fire, authorities said. He fired four rounds in all: three struck a metal trash can near the terminal, and a fourth hit the windshield of an unoccupied car parked nearby. A backpack in his possession held two 16-round magazines, each loaded with a dozen rounds, according to investigators.

Deputies located Mendiola moments later sitting on a bench in the parking area and took him into custody without further incident. He was too intoxicated and combative to be interviewed at the scene, detectives said. Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office Detective Joseph Peguero Rivera described the shooting as an isolated incident and said it was not an active-shooter situation.

The gunfire triggered a large-scale response, with the departure-level entrance from doors 12 through 17 and the outer roadway lanes shut down and traffic rerouted to the arrivals level. Airport officials said normal operations resumed roughly two hours later, and the Miami-Dade Aviation Department said all passengers and employees were confirmed safe.

The shooting took place entirely outside the airport's security perimeter, in a public parking structure that travelers pass through before reaching a checkpoint, so it fell to sheriff's deputies rather than the Transportation Security Administration to respond. Dozens of sheriff's office vehicles converged on the scene, and deputies in tactical gear carrying rifles fanned out across the garage and departures roadway as the airport briefly restricted access.

A felony charge built on where the shots were aimed

Mendiola was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where jail records show he faces one felony count of shooting or throwing a deadly missile, one misdemeanor count of unlawfully discharging a firearm in a public place, and two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief. The felony count falls under a Florida law that makes it a second-degree felony to fire a weapon at an occupied building, including an airport terminal.

He appeared Thursday morning before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy S. Glazer, where a public defender argued there was no probable cause for the felony charge because the rounds struck a trash can rather than the terminal itself. A prosecutor countered that the trajectory was what mattered: the rounds were fired toward the terminal, which qualifies as an occupied building regardless of what they ultimately struck. The case can be tracked through the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts' online criminal case search. The judge set bond at $26,000.

Court and arrest records indicate Mendiola is homeless and had been arrested at least three times in June on petty theft charges after stealing alcohol from a supermarket and liquor store near the airport, a history that emerged as background in Thursday's hearing but was not part of the new charges.

Panic inside one of the country's busiest airports

The shooting unfolded at an airport that served more than 55 million passengers last year, making it the eighth-busiest in the country and the second-busiest for international travel. Video and witness accounts described a chaotic scene as word of gunfire spread through the terminal, with some travelers told to shelter in place while heavily armed officers moved through the parking structure and roadways.

"The police come in with the guns, so it looks like something was very serious, yeah," said Tariq Elmasaoudi, a traveler at the airport when the shooting began.

Other passengers described a similarly tense scene, with dozens of officers, including SWAT units, converging on the parking garage as the departures roadway was sealed off and arriving vehicles were diverted. The episode inevitably drew comparisons in South Florida to the January 2017 mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, roughly 30 miles north, in which a gunman killed five people in the baggage claim area after retrieving a firearm he had legally checked in his luggage. That attack, which remains the deadliest at a U.S. airport in decades, has shaped how heavily law enforcement responds to any report of gunfire near an airport terminal, even when, as in Wednesday's case, the shooting turns out not to be a mass-casualty event.

What happens next

Mendiola remained in custody at the Turner Guilford Knight facility as of Thursday, held on the $26,000 bond set at his first appearance. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office said its investigation into the shooting is continuing, and additional charges are possible depending on what detectives find as they review surveillance footage and interview witnesses. Airport officials have not announced any changes to security procedures at the parking garage or terminal curb as a result of the incident, and flight operations were not disrupted beyond the roughly two-hour closure of the departure roadway. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is expected to formally file charges as the case proceeds through circuit court, where Mendiola's next appearance will determine whether the case moves toward trial or a plea.