Police say gunfire erupted near the main stage late Sunday, killing one person and wounding two others as the free street festival was winding down.
MIAMI, FL — A shooting near the main stage of the Taste of Miami Karnival in Little Haiti late Sunday left one person dead and two others injured, police said, turning a daylong Caribbean cultural celebration into a crime scene just before the event was set to end.
Authorities said officers were alerted shortly before 11:30 p.m. after ShotSpotter detected gunfire near Northeast 62nd Street and Northeast Second Avenue. Rescue crews took all three victims to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. One victim later died, while the other two were reported in stable condition. The shooting matters beyond the immediate toll because it struck a large public event promoted as a free, family-friendly gathering and because, by Monday afternoon, police still had not publicly identified the victims, announced arrests or explained what led to the gunfire.
The festival had begun hours earlier as a lively showcase of Caribbean culture in Little Haiti. Organizers and city promotions billed A Taste of Miami Karnival as an open-air event with live music, food and performances, and the city had announced Little Haiti trolley detours for Sunday because Northeast Second Avenue was closed for the celebration. Local coverage from earlier in the day showed floats, bands and dancers moving through the neighborhood before crowds gathered near the stage for the nighttime portion of the program. Police said the violence came toward the end of the event, after a full day in which the street had been used for performances and festival traffic. Officer Mike Vega said the alert came in just before midnight, and officers found three people with gunshot wounds near the stage area. Miami Fire Rescue transported them to the trauma center, where one of the victims was pronounced dead a short time later. Two others survived with injuries that officials said were not life-threatening as of Monday.
Witnesses described a sudden burst of gunfire followed by confusion and a rush to escape. One witness told Local 10 that she heard two shots, then saw a young man on the ground and people running in every direction. She said there was a pause and then more shots. Leonel Frage told 7News he heard four quick shots. Another woman told that station that the crowd began screaming, running and falling over one another as people tried to get away. Video from the aftermath showed shoes and clothing left on the pavement while paramedics worked around at least one victim. 7News, citing sources it did not name, reported that one man was shot in the chest, a woman was shot in the leg, and another man was shot in the abdomen and backside. Police had not confirmed those wound details publicly by Monday, and they had not said whether the shooter fired from within the crowd, from outside the festival perimeter or after any argument or fight. Those gaps left major parts of the attack unclear even as the scene itself was no longer active.
The location sharpened the shock. Little Haiti’s section of Northeast Second Avenue had been transformed Sunday into a festival corridor stretching from Northeast 54th Street to Northeast 62nd Street, according to earlier event coverage. Promotions described the gathering as a celebration of Caribbean arts, cuisine and music, and local television footage from before the shooting showed a parade atmosphere with floats, bands and families gathered along the street. A host interviewed ahead of the festivities described the event as a chance for Caribbean communities to come together in one place. That setting helped explain the level of panic after the gunfire. Witnesses said hundreds of people had gathered, and one woman told 7News she felt fortunate to have escaped unharmed. By Monday morning, the same block that had been used for music and dancing was lined with crime scene tape, police cruisers and investigators looking for evidence. The contrast between the festival’s public image and the violence at its close is likely to shape questions about security, event planning and how the shooting happened in such a crowded space.
Police have released only a limited procedural outline so far. They said officers responded after the ShotSpotter alert, secured the scene and opened an investigation. By just after 9 a.m. Monday, WSVN reported that Northeast Second Avenue at 62nd Street remained shut down while officers combed the area for clues. Miami police said no one was in custody and had not released the names, ages or hometowns of the three victims. The department also had not announced whether detectives recovered a weapon, how many shell casings were found or whether surveillance cameras captured the shooter. Those unanswered questions are central to the next phase of the case. In the absence of arrests, investigators typically work to match witness accounts, video and physical evidence to identify who fired and whether more than one person was involved. Publicly, the clearest next step Monday was the request for information: 7News reported that authorities urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers. Any formal charging decision, police briefing or court filing will depend on whether detectives can identify a suspect and build probable cause.
The shooting also landed at the end of a violent weekend in Miami-Dade County. WSVN noted that the Little Haiti attack was one of three separate shootings authorities across the county were investigating from the weekend period. About an hour earlier Sunday night, one person was airlifted to Jackson South Medical Center after a shooting in Florida City, according to that report. The night before, Miami Gardens police investigated a separate triple shooting outside a Checkers restaurant near Northwest 27th Avenue and Miami Gardens Drive. Those incidents were not linked publicly to the festival attack, but together they added to the sense of strain surrounding public safety in the county over the weekend. Even so, officials have not said the Taste of Miami Karnival shooting was part of any broader pattern or coordinated activity. At this stage, the case remains narrowly defined as a late-night shooting at a public event in Little Haiti, with detectives still working through evidence and witness statements and with the motive, the chain of events and the identity of the gunman still unknown.
By Monday, the emotional center of the story remained with the people who had come expecting music and community and instead found themselves running for cover. A witness told Local 10 that when she turned around she saw a young man lying unresponsive on the ground. Another witness told 7News that what stayed with her was that the gunfire seemed to resume after an initial burst. Those accounts, though partial, captured the rhythm of the panic: noise, a brief pause, more shots, then a crush of people trying to flee. They also showed the limits of witness memory in a fast-moving scene, where many people heard the shots but did not see the shooter. That is one reason investigators often rely on video, shell casing patterns and hospital records to fill in what frightened spectators cannot. For the neighborhood, the death turned what was supposed to be a signature celebration into a grim headline. For the victims’ families, the public story was still painfully incomplete, with one person dead, two others recovering and many basic facts still withheld or not yet known.
As of Monday, one victim was dead, two others were stable, and Miami police had not announced an arrest or released the victims’ identities. The next major milestone will be any police update on suspects, evidence or victim identification as the investigation moves forward this week.
Author note: Last updated April 13, 2026.