Steve Gallon IV, the son of an incoming Miami-Dade County commissioner, has been sentenced to 60 months in prison with credit for time served after pleading guilty to attempted first-degree murder in the March 2023 shooting of Miami-Dade Sgt. Darrian Washington. The plea and sentence came during a hearing held in open court, closing out a case that began when Gallon was accused of shooting the sergeant from behind while he worked an undercover drug investigation.
Gallon, who is 36 years old according to NBC 6 South Florida, allowed the judge to decide his sentence rather than negotiating a fixed term. He had faced up to 30 years in prison on the original charge and has been incarcerated since his arrest in 2023, the station reports. A separate report from The Miami Times had previously described Gallon as 32 years old, and the dossier does not resolve which figure is accurate.
Sgt. Washington was conducting undercover surveillance tied to a drug investigation when he was ambushed from behind and shot in the back of the head, per the same NBC 6 account; the bullet grazed him and he survived. The shooting stemmed from a chaotic encounter that began when Gallon and co-defendant Atiba Moore were near Northwest 43rd Street and Northwest 5th Avenue while police watched Moore as part of that drug probe, according to an earlier NBC 6 report from September 2023. An arrest report cited in that story said a detective crashed into the back of Moore's car after Moore stopped abruptly, and it was in the aftermath of that collision that Gallon allegedly shot the detective in the head from behind.
Defense Pointed to Unmarked Police and a Chaotic Chase
Attorney Roderick Vereen, who represented Gallon, argued in 2023 that officers had chased the two men with no lights on, in a high-crime neighborhood, in vehicles bearing no insignia — details the station's report on the bond hearing laid out in full. Vereen told The Miami Times that there was no evidence his client knew Sgt. Washington was a police officer and maintained that Gallon did not intentionally shoot an officer, according to The Miami Times.
Vereen also argued that there was enough fault to go around and described the shooting as unintentional, framing it as the byproduct of a confusing and poorly identified police pursuit rather than a targeted attack on law enforcement. Following the sentencing, Vereen said he was glad the case was finally over.
Phone Call and Surveillance Video Featured in Case
Investigators pointed to additional evidence connecting Gallon to the shooting. Police said a 14-second phone call took place between Moore and Gallon about a minute before Sgt. Washington was shot, according to the Miami Herald. Investigators also said surveillance video captured Gallon in an alley near the home after the shooting, holding what appeared to be a gun, the Herald reported.
The Herald's earlier coverage noted that Gallon and Moore had both been charged with first-degree attempted murder of the officer, while The Miami Times had described the original charge as attempted second-degree murder of a law enforcement officer with a firearm — a discrepancy the available reporting does not clarify. Both men were denied bond in 2023 and ordered to remain in jail until trial, the Herald reported at the time, a status that held until this week's plea and sentencing brought the case to a close.
A Family Name Tied to Miami-Dade Politics
Gallon IV is the son of Steve Gallon III, a former Miami-Dade School Board member who was elected to the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners and is set to take office in January.
With the guilty plea entered and sentencing handed down, the criminal case against Steve Gallon IV is now resolved, though the underlying account of exactly how the shooting unfolded — including questions about lighting, identification, and intent that his defense raised from the outset — remains shaped by dueling versions from police and the defense laid out across the case's more than two years in the court system.
