Police: Tinder date-turned-carjacking ultimately led to shooting wounding MDPD officer

Woman mocked victim as group of carjackers sped off, police say

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – A 22-year-old woman was arrested Monday in St. Lucie County after authorities say she set up a man to be carjacked on a Tinder date in Miami Gardens in late November.

The victim’s stolen car was later at the nexus of a shooting that injured a Miami-Dade Police Department robbery detective a little more than two weeks later, according to an arrest warrant.

In the warrant, Miami Gardens police detective Gary Florencio wrote that Alexis Raianna Cardenas, who has addresses in Fitchburg, Wisconsin and Port St. Lucie, had arranged a Tinder date with a man on Nov. 20.

The two met in the parking lot of Topgolf, located at 17321 NW 7th Ave., off the Golden Glades interchange, Florencio wrote. Police said after a few minutes of hanging out in the lot, Cardenas instructed the victim to park at a nearby apartment complex.

The two continued to speak and the victim told officers that he noticed that Cardenas, in the passenger’s seat, was texting someone.

Alexis Cardenas (MDCR)

Florencio wrote that after the victim got out of the car to “urinate in the bushes,” he came back and was “suddenly and immediately ambushed” by two men wearing all black and forced to the ground at gunpoint.

The two forced the man to unlock his phone and, along with Cardenas, drove away.

The victim later told police that he saw Cardenas — who had moved to the car’s back seat — smirking at him as she and the men drove off with the man’s car.

On Dec. 5, a Miami-Dade police robbery detective saw the stolen Volkswagen Jetta near Northwest 186th Street and 67th Avenue, police said.

Police said the man driving the Volkswagen, 20-year-old Gabriel Gongora, shot at the detective, later identified as Ricaurte Lugo, lodging a bullet fragment in the officer’s face.

Police officers arrest Gabriel Gongora accusing him of shooting at a detective who was injured in the face on Monday in Miami-Dade County. (MDCR)

Gongora, who was later charged with attempted murder, fled to his home in the Haven Lakes Estates mobile home park in Miramar and police arrested him shortly after.

Cardenas, who appeared in court on Tuesday, faces charges of armed carjacking and conspiracy to commit armed carjacking, both felonies.

She was being held without bond.

It’s not clear if police have identified any additional suspects.


About the Authors:

Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.

Terrell Forney joined Local 10 News in October 2005 as a general assignment reporter. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but a desire to escape the harsh winters of the north brought him to South Florida.