Man arrested in connection with Jackson Memorial Hospital threats

Another man who wanted to take mother home previously accused of making threats

MIAMI – Detectives know a person threatening to use an AR-15 and AK-47 rifles to shoot inside Jackson Memorial Hospital's main campus made a phone call to the Miami-Dade Police Department from hospital room 533 in the West Wing.

They believe the June 29 caller was Juvane Raheem Hylton. But before arresting the 22-year-old hospital employee on Friday, they also questioned another man who was having a dispute with a JMH doctor.

Both men claimed that they were set up and detectives had yet to find the real threat. Detectives disagree. 

"If you guys see anything about me anywhere just know it wasn't me," Hylton wrote on Facebook before the arrest. "And I don't know who it is, but I feel like I was set up."

On his LinkedIn profile, Hylton wrote that he is a hospital unit coordinator. Police officers said he works in the West Wing of JMH. When they questioned him, Hylton said a patient in room 533 asked him to help make a phone call, according to the arrest report. 

"The sole patient assigned to the room was out for a medical procedure during the time that the call was made," police wrote in the report adding that the caller's threats caused pandemonium. 

Before Hylton was arrested, Jimmy Harris said that at first he had no idea why police officers showed up to his home in Miami's Liberty City and put handcuffs on him. 

"They were coming in my house, rambling in my house, saying I had guns and everything," he said. "And I don't own no gun."

The officers questioned him about making a threat to shoot at the hospital. Harris said he did not make the threat. He said he had a disagreement with a doctor at the hospital last Friday and then he was questioned by authorities for about two hours. Harris believes that he was framed.

"From what I heard, they said the doctor told them that I was going to shoot up the hospital, shoot up her and kill myself," Harris said. 

Harris wants his 88-year-old mother to return to their home in Liberty Square but, he said, the staff at the hospital wants his mother to live in a nursing home. She had been at the hospital since Father's Day and was ready to be discharged when he and the doctor were at odds. 

According to Harris, the doctor said, "Well, I'm not releasing your mother to you. I'm going to put your mother in a home."

Harris said his response was, "Well lady, don't let me have to come out there."

Police officers cleared Harris of any criminal threat. The Florida Department of Children and Families also cleared him and determined that he was fit to be his mother's caretaker again. Meanwhile, Hylton is facing charges of making a false bomb report and misuse of the 911 system.

 


About the Authors:

Roy Ramos joined the Local 10 News team in 2018. Roy is a South Florida native who grew up in Florida City. He attended Christopher Columbus High School, Homestead Senior High School and graduated from St. Thomas University.

Glenna Milberg joined Local 10 News in September 1999 to report on South Florida's top stories and community issues. She also serves as co-host on Local 10's public affairs broadcast, "This Week in South Florida."