MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A 22-year-old man was arrested Tuesday afternoon after officers with the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department said he was found with a loaded handgun outside a local K-8 school during student dismissal.
Jail records show Anthony Mariano Gutierrez was taken into custody around 3:45 p.m. at Citrus Grove K-8, located at 2153 NW Third St.
Police said they were conducting school dismissal when a student pointed out a man sitting on a motor scooter in the parent pickup lane along Northwest Third Street.
Shortly after, the student told officers in Spanish, “That’s the guy from Lil Havana,” the report stated.
Police said a separate anonymous student had previously told officers on Feb. 5 that a man known as “Psycho” was riding around on a scooter with a gun and was affiliated with the “Lil Havana Taliban” gang.
The student described the man as having long black hair but did not know his real name.
Based on that information, officers said they approached Gutierrez, who was sitting on a scooter facing westbound in the pickup lane. When asked why he was at the school, Gutierrez told officers he was there to pick up his niece, according to the report.
Gutierrez later denied having any weapons on campus, the report stated.
Authorities said they asked him to step off the scooter and conducted a pat-down search. During the search, an officer reported seeing the handle and magazine of a handgun protruding from Gutierrez’s right front pocket.
Police said they recovered a Glock 19 9mm handgun. The gun had no round in the chamber but contained 16 rounds of 9mm ammunition in the magazine, according to the report.
Gutierrez was the placed under arrest, and the gun was secured by a supervising sergeant at the scene, according to investigators.
He was then transported to MDSP headquarters, where detectives interviewed him after he waived his Miranda rights.
Police said Gutierrez told them that he had no issues with any students, staff or parents at the school.
He said he had previously been involved in a physical fight last summer with an alleged gang member he knew only by the nickname “Smiley” in the area of Northwest 27th Avenue and Northwest 119th Street, according to the report.
Since that fight, Gutierrez said he had received threatening phone calls but did not take them seriously, the report stated.
Jail records show Gutierrez is facing one count of illegal possession of a firearm on school property and one count of knowingly driving with a suspended license.
He is expected to be released from the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, after posting a $2,650 bond on Tuesday afternoon.
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