When Osvaldo Cueli noticed a person who he believed to be trespassing round his ten-acre farmland in Redland, he was involved about his household’s security and retrieved his mom’s pistol. His household says he was not usually the gun-toting kind, however he felt he had no selection however to arm himself earlier than going again out to see if the person had returned.
“These have been his phrases to my grandmother, ‘How am I speculated to defend myself? With a rock? I am unable to do something with a rock.’ She wasn’t comfy, however clearly due to what’s taking place, she gave it to him,” Cueli’s daughter, Gabriela, tells New Times.
Around 3 p.m. that day, after Cueli headed again out to the sting of the property along with his teenage son, two individuals drove up in a pair of pickup vehicles with tinted home windows — autos Cueli didn’t acknowledge. By all accounts, one of many drivers opened fireplace on Cueli within the confrontation that adopted, and the 59-year-old farmer was shot lifeless close to the doorway to the property the place he’d run his tree nursery for many years.
Cueli’s son, additionally named Osvaldo, tells New Times that neither he nor his dad had any thought the 2 drivers, who have been carrying denims and unmarked shirts, have been Miami-Dade cops. He says police didn’t determine themselves as regulation enforcement earlier than capturing. “I did not even know in the event that they have been cops. I assumed they have been random individuals making an attempt to kill us,” the son says.
In the aftermath of the November 2023 incident, the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) launched few particulars about what had transpired, other than stating that the officers have been a part of an unlawful dumping unit responding to a report of a stolen automobile. While the division claimed Cueli brandished his gun on the officers earlier than police opened fireplace, the son maintained that his father by no means pointed a weapon at them.
“I did not even know in the event that they have been cops. I assumed they have been random individuals making an attempt to kill us.”
tweet this
A photograph of one of many unmarked vehicles exhibits a number of bullet holes in its driver-side windshield. According to the post-mortem report, Cueli suffered deadly gunshot wounds to his torso and proper arm.
Newly obtained mobile phone video recorded by Cueli’s daughter exhibits the moments after the deadly capturing at his property on 18200 SW 192nd St. The video captures Cueli mendacity on the bottom with blood pouring out of his mouth. The two policemen standing over him are carrying road garments — one with a black sweater and the second in a gray t-shirt with a badge hanging round his neck. The second officer claims, “We recognized ourselves,” after which steps straight over Cueli’s physique.
“That’s my dad,” Gabriela yells within the video, crying as her father’s physique lies on the bottom. “That’s my dad. The cops shot my dad.”
“My dad wasn’t violent,” Gabriela tells New Times. “He wasn’t doing something mistaken… He was merely defending his property, they usually confirmed up and killed him.”
What occurred subsequent was almost as surprising to the Cueli household because the capturing itself. After fatally wounding his father, MDPD detained {the teenager} and put him at the back of a police automobile, holding him for a number of hours. His mom was handcuffed and detained as properly.
“A number of the police have been simply laughing and joking round the entire time,” Osvaldo says. “None of them have been answering me once I was speaking to them.”
Citing an open investigation into the capturing, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and MDPD declined to remark on New Times’ inquiry, together with requests for details about the officers concerned within the capturing and particulars in regards to the occasions that preceded it.
A Family Man
Gabriela, alongside together with her three infants — ages 1, 2, and three — her brother, aunt, grandmother, father, and mom lived on the ten-acre property, a former tree farm that when belonged to her late grandfather.
“We’ve lived there our complete lives,” Gabriela says. “We grew up there. It’s at all times been a household home.”
Born in Miami, Cueli was one in all 4 youngsters in a tight-knit Cuban-American household.
His household says he devoted himself to tending the farm and sustaining the land, the place he grew mahogany and Royal Palms, amongst different bushes. The property lies simply east of the Everglades, a few 30-mile drive from downtown Miami, in a rural group that served as the location of a few of south Miami-Dade’s first agricultural settlements.
Cueli’s youngsters describe their dad as a hard-working and loving household man.
“Everything he did was for the household –– it was for us,” Gabriela says. “He’d get up, deal with the farm. He was at all times making an attempt to make individuals glad. He was at all times making an attempt to make peace between all people.”
Osvaldo Cueli (proper) stands subsequent to his spouse, daughter Gabriela, and teenage son Osvaldo whereas they maintain Cueli’s grandchildren.
Photo by Gabriela Cueli
Osvaldo says his dad, whom he calls his finest good friend, would put everybody else’s wants earlier than his personal. The son recollects when he wished to purchase a brand new TV for the again patio, his father provided to pay for it and put it within the son’s room as a substitute. He says he pushed his dad to switch his personal TV, telling his father, “You by no means purchase your self something.” Cueli initially obliged however, in the long run, put the brand new set in a household space exterior on the patio.Â
Gabriela and Osvaldo insist their dad was not one to hold a gun day-to-day and that he was not a violent man. The siblings say on the day of the deadly capturing, he grabbed their grandmother’s gun as a result of he was involved the particular person whom he noticed round their property earlier within the day would return.
Unexpected Visitors
It was a typical day on the Cueli family on November 29, 2023. Cueli was along with his good friend engaged on his automobile whereas his son and Gabriela left the home to purchase a automobile half.
After returning to the property, the son says he was speaking to his dad exterior the home when he observed individuals standing by their again gate. He thought they could be his dad’s buddies, so he and his father rode over in a golf cart to research.
“Once we begin getting just a little shut, we see that they hopped the fence, they usually’re inside our property,” Osvaldo tells New Times. “They have been like a ship trailer by the sting of the property. Then, as we began to get nearer, they nonetheless hadn’t observed us. My dad honked the horn, they usually took off.”
The father and son hopped into their automobile to trace down the white truck that drove off. After they went across the block, Osvaldo says, they have been coming again down the road and observed the truck once more parked on their property. “As I attempt to get out of the automobile and check out to take a look at their faces, they drive off,” he says.
The duo made their means again to the home, the place Cueli grabbed the gun and put it in a holster on his waist earlier than driving again out to the entrance of the property, along with his son following behind in a golf cart. They have been standing close to the doorway to the farmland when, the son says, two vehicles they didn’t acknowledge — a pair of unmarked Dodge Rams with tinted home windows — zoomed up.
“They each got here actually near the bushes, they usually blocked us in,” Osvaldo says. “They began capturing from contained in the automobile, they usually did not have any lights on. They did not announce themselves. They did not put down the home windows, and the home windows have been blacked out.”
The tarp, which was hanging on the fence the place Cueli was killed, is stuffed with bullet holes.
Photo by Naomi Feinstein
The son says police began firing regardless of his dad by no means pointing a gun at them. At first, he says, he did not know he was within the midst of a hail of bullets.
“Because they have been capturing from contained in the automobile, it nearly did not even sound actual,” he provides. “I acquired hit by a bit of concrete from the cement electrical energy pole that now we have out of entrance. I checked out my shoulder, and I used to be like, ‘We’re not getting shot at. That’s not a bullet.’ And then once I regarded on the window, I began seeing little bullet holes popping up within the window.”
MDPD has not publicly launched ballistics proof regarding whether or not Cueli’s gun was fired. New Times will present an replace when that knowledge is launched.
Once he realized gunshots have been fired, {the teenager} hopped the gate and sprinted again to the home as bullets whizzed round him. Gabriela observed her brother operating in the direction of her with a panicked look on his face and rushed out together with her mother’s telephone in hand to see what was happening.
“I observed my dad’s automobile there, and it is empty — I do not see my dad,” she tells New Times. “As I get nearer, once I do see my dad, it is him on the ground, struggling to breathe and blood popping out of his mouth. He was choking on his blood, and at that second, I simply pulled out the telephone and began recording. They weren’t doing something to assist my dad.”
Cueli’s daughter says one officer “walked over him like a rag doll.”
tweet this
The heavy-set officer within the gray shirt might be heard saying, “We recognized ourselves, and he pulled out a gun on us,” earlier than he steps over Cueli’s physique. Another responding officer wearing road garments tells Gabriela that her dad is “tremendous” and to settle down, to which she responds, “No, he’s not tremendous. He will not be respiratory. My dad will not be respiratory.”
While Gabriela repeatedly cries out and asks for an ambulance, the officers are wanting on and don’t instantly are likely to Cueli. Pointing out that her father’s eyes are rolling into the again of his head, the daughter pleads, “No one’s serving to my dad.”
The video exhibits the officers transferring the siblings away from the scene and placing the teenage son’s palms behind his again as he calls out for his father. The brother and sister urge the officers to airlift Cueli, however one officer reassures them an ambulance is on the means.
Gabriela tells New Times the officers “left him to die” and “walked over him like a rag doll as if he did not matter.”
“Their major concern was to get me and my brother out of the property and onto the street away from my dad,” she provides, noting that her infants remained inside the home whereas the cops tried to detain her in a police automobile. “They weren’t making an attempt to assist him. They had all of us detained for varied hours alongside the street.”
Following the capturing, Miami-Dade Police stated detectives responded to the realm after receiving a name a few doable stolen automobile. They reportedly claimed they observed a automobile on the property matching the outline supplied by the caller and tried to make contact with Cueli.
“As the officers have been merely making an attempt to get off to have the ability to make contact with him, that is when the topic armed himself with a firearm, produced a firearm, and that is when pictures have been fired,” Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta stated in November 2023.
Citing the energetic investigation, the Miami-Dade Police Department declined to supply additional particulars. Early media reviews urged that the decision to police might have been associated to the person Cueli and his son noticed on the property, however the police division declined to elaborate when contacted by New Times.
Seeking Justice
Cueli’s spouse was escorted down the household driveway in handcuffs and positioned at the back of a patrol automobile after the capturing. His son says the officers had him and his mother handcuffed at the back of police vehicles on the road for hours. He tells New Times he stored asking the officers why he was being detained however that they shrugged him off, at one level refusing to let him use the toilet.
“I wanted to pee for like two hours, after which like all of them stored on telling me like, ‘Oh, simply piss at the back of the cop automobile,'” Osvaldo says.
Shortly following his mom’s launch, Osvaldo says, he was freed round 8 p.m. — 5 hours after the capturing befell. The siblings say the police blocked off the ten-acre property till the household was permitted to return house early the subsequent morning.
“It was like two or three within the morning,” Gabriela says. “They allowed us to again within the property. They gave my dad’s private results, however that was it.”
Osvaldo suspects he heard greater than a dozen gunshots that day. Following the capturing, his household discovered a number of bullet casings strewn across the grass.
The two officers concerned within the capturing have been each two-decade veterans in regulation enforcement, in accordance with earlier reporting. FDLE declined to supply New Times with their names, saying it might be towards coverage in mild of the continued investigation.
While questions linger in regards to the name that prompted police to drive out to the Cuelis’ property, the household maintains there was no stolen automobile on the property that day.
“They have been apparently in search of a stolen automobile,” Osvaldo states. “Realistically, for them to do something, they need to at the least run the plate of the automobile and ensure it is not just a few random automobile.”
The household’s lawyer, Robert Pertierra, says police informed him Cueli’s gun was discovered within the shrubbery off to the aspect of the property close to the street.
Since their father’s dying, the household says it feels totally different being on the property. Gabriela says she has since moved out of the home. Osvaldo tells New Times he want to keep and doesn’t need his household to promote the land as a result of it was pricey to his grandfather — the final place he referred to as house earlier than he died.
“My dad was the lifetime of the farm,” Gabriela remembers. “Now, after we’re exterior, it is quiet. Before there was at all times motion going round. There was life. He gave life to all the pieces.”