OPA-LOCKA, Fla. – A family is pleading for someone to come forward with information about a deadly shooting in Opa-locka that claimed the life of one of their loved ones.
“If you know something, saw something, heard something, I’m begging and pleading for you to say something,” the victim’s mother, Barbara Smith, said.
Police said Gregory Smith Jr., 20, was fatally shot in August at an apartment complex on Alexandria Drive.
“I have no understanding for what happened. It’s like I’m still processing that my son is gone,” Smith said.
Smith’s mother spoke outside the Miami-Dade Police Department headquarters Wednesday and said her son was visiting someone at the apartment complex on August 12 when multiple people approached him.
She said one of them pulled out a gun and opened fire.
Paramedics transported Smith to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he later died.
The shooting happened just after 8 p.m. — a time when detectives say people would normally be outside.
“It’s still a time when there’s plenty of people outside that could’ve seen what happened, could’ve helped Gregory, could’ve done something for him, could’ve brought some closure to this family,” Detective Jorge Rodriguez said.
While detectives say they have received some leads in this case, they still need help from the public in order to help bring closure to a family that is still desperate for answers some two months later.
Smith’s mother shared this message for her son’s killer.
“You have a mother, you have a father. You may one day have children, you might have children now,” she said. “You need to look at that, because you wouldn’t want this to happen to your family.”