MIAMI — A surveillance video is evidence in the unsolved murder of 40-year-old activist Dwight C. Wells on Friday night in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.
Wells, who started the “Wheels Up Guns Down” anti-violence demonstrations, was outside his restaurant at Winning and Won Turkey Legs.
Wells’s mother, Mary Brown, said she talked to him over the phone about 30 minutes before the shooting.
“He said, ‘Mom, I’m on my way to you.’ I said, ‘Come on son, I’m waiting.’”
Wells didn’t make it home. The video shows him in the outdoor area of his restaurant at 5090 NW 17 Ave. Officer Michael Vega, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, said he was playing dominoes with two other players.
“The subject walked up to him and shot him,” Vega said, wrote in a statement on Saturday morning.
The surveillance video shows when Wells collapsed.
Police officers found Wells bleeding and unresponsive after a ShotSpotter alert shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Friday at 5030 NW 17 Ave., and Miami Fire Rescue personnel took him to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.
Homicide detectives started their investigation after Wells died, according to Vega.
“I’m going to let God work it out,” said Brown, adding she knew he had enemies, but she was proud of him for starting the “Wheels Up Guns Down” movement and for his passion during the years of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day demonstrations.
“My son was a pillar for this community. He would always give someone the shirt off his back,” Brown said. “I miss him, but he is with the Lord and I will see him in Heaven.”
Hours after the murder, people continued to drive by to pay their respects.
“My nephew did amazing stuff for the community,” Suzette Hester, his grieving aunt, said. “He didn’t deserve this!”
Detectives asked anyone with information about this or other cases to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477 to remain anonymous.
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