MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A registered sex offender shot another man in the leg hours after getting into a spat with the victim outside of a northwest Miami-Dade restaurant, provoking a shootout, deputies said.
An arrest report describes the dispute between Eugene Janode Witherspoon, 46, and the victim as “verbal” but doesn’t say what it was about. Deputies said it happened Tuesday morning outside Mazie’s Soul Food Restaurant at 7525 NW 22nd Ave. in the county’s Gladeview area.
But investigators with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said it ramped up when Witherspoon went to the victim’s home in the 7300 block of Northwest 20th Court at around 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, approached him as he was walking in with his girlfriend and opened fire three times, hitting him in the leg.
Deputies said the victim returned fire and Witherspoon, who lives in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood, fled. Detectives said they found 11 shell casings at the scene.
Medics took the victim to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police said he told detectives he doesn’t know Witherspoon, but has seen him in the neighborhood “multiple times.”
According to the arrest report, deputies found Witherspoon later that evening walking on Northwest 22nd Avenue. They said he was wearing the same sneakers that he was in CCTV footage depicting the shooting.
Investigators said Witherspoon admitted to shooting the victim and getting rid of the gun, though he wouldn’t say where he dumped it.
A records check revealed Witherspoon’s sex offender status, stemming from a 1999 conviction for lewd and lascivious battery on a child under 16.
Deputies arrested Witherspoon on charges of attempted first-degree murder and felon in possession of a firearm and took him to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
His bond was listed in Miami-Dade jail records as “to be set” as of Thursday morning.
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