A 17-year-old from Miami has been booked into an adult detention facility on five felony charges, including two counts of attempted murder, tied to a late-night shooting at a South Miami-Dade farmstand and a pair of armed robberies that police say followed the same disturbing pattern of luring victims into public bathrooms.
Jencarlos Gamez was booked into the Metrowest Detention Center on Tuesday evening to face charges as an adult, according to Local 10 News. He had initially been arrested on July 21 following the shooting, per Miami-Dade jail records cited by NBC 6 South Florida. He appeared before a judge Wednesday morning, who ordered him held without bond, NBC 6 reported.
The shooting happened around 11:30 p.m. on July 19, 2025, at The Berry Farm, an agritourism attraction at 13720 SW 216th Street in Miami-Dade's rural Redland district known for U-pick fields and seasonal festivals, according to background details from Time Out. NBC 6 reports the confrontation began when one group of people attacked another in retaliation for a previous attack. Investigators obtained footage of the shooting that helped identify Gamez as the shooter, per NBC 6's account of the arrest reports.
Surveillance Footage Captures the Chaos
Arrest reports detailed by the same Local 10 report show video footage of the incident capturing Gamez running toward a group of victims while pointing a firearm. The footage reportedly shows him being struck and falling to the ground, then retrieving an object before a gunshot went off, as NBC 6 also reported. People at the encounter fled after the gunshot sounded, and the victim escaped from the suspects, according to NBC 6's reporting.
Gamez faces multiple charges stemming from the shooting, including attempted murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a firearm, and carrying a concealed firearm, per NBC 6. He is charged in at least three separate incidents altogether, with the Berry Farm case joined by two earlier armed robberies that investigators say share a common method.
A Pattern of Luring Victims Into Bathrooms
In the December 13, 2025 robbery at a McDonald's on SW 26th Street, Gamez and two other suspects allegedly robbed a victim at gunpoint, according to NBC 6. Arrest reports relayed by the local station's report show that a co-defendant invited unsuspecting victims to hang out before luring them into a public restroom, where the group robbed them — the same setup investigators say played out again months later.
A similar robbery occurred on July 8, 2026 at Eureka Park on SW 119th Avenue, where a victim was robbed at gunpoint of a bookbag containing a firearm, NBC 6 reported. Suspects forced the victim into a bathroom, where one suspect pistol-whipped him multiple times while Gamez punched him and a third suspect held him down, according to NBC 6. Suspects also tried to take the victim's bracelet and earring before the victim ran for help, NBC 6 reported. The victim later identified Gamez in a photo lineup, and Gamez confessed to his involvement in the robbery, per NBC 6's account.
Statutes That Sent the Case to Adult Court
Florida's direct-file provision, codified in Florida Statute 985.557, gives state attorneys broad discretionary authority to prosecute minors as young as 14 in adult criminal court for specified violent offenses, including attempted murder and armed robbery, without needing prior judicial approval, according to the Baez Law Firm. That authority appears to explain how a 17-year-old ended up facing adult felony counts rather than juvenile proceedings.
If convicted on firearm-enhanced charges, Gamez could also face Florida's so-called 10-20-Life mandatory minimums under Florida Statute 775.087, which strip judges of discretion and require at least 10 years in prison for possessing a gun during a felony, 20 years for discharging one, and 25 years to life if a discharge causes death or great bodily harm, according to Terrezza Law.
Sheriff's Office Now Leads Investigation
The case is being handled by the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, which officially replaced the Miami-Dade Police Department on January 7, 2025, when Rosie Cordero-Stutz was sworn in as the county's first elected sheriff in nearly 60 years, according to WLRN. Miami-Dade voters reinstated an independent sheriff's office under a Florida constitutional mandate, ending decades of the county police department model.
Gamez lives in South Miami Heights, an unincorporated community roughly 17 miles southwest of downtown Miami with a 2020 population of 36,770 residents, about 75.5% of whom identify as Hispanic, according to Census Reporter data. He is now being held at Metrowest Detention Center, a maximum-security facility with a capacity of 1,685 inmate beds operated by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, per county budget documents.
The case arrives even as broader violent crime trends have moved in the opposite direction. Data from the Council on Criminal Justice released in July 2025 found reported violent crime across major U.S. cities dropped in the first half of 2025 compared with 2024, with robberies falling 20% and gun assaults down 21% nationally.
