Police identify suspect arrested after chase from Key Biscayne to Miami

MIAMI – Detectives identified the suspect in a police chase on Friday from Key Biscayne to Miami as Ashanti Erwin Earp. He turned 31 on Wednesday.

Police officers started to follow Earp after he showed up armed to threaten his father-in-law at Pita Pockets, a small Mediterranean restaurant at a strip mall along Crandon Boulevard, police said.

Earp was armed with a rifle and he was driving a BMW sports utility vehicle when he sideswiped a Key Biscayne police officer’s patrol car, police said.

A Miami-Dade police helicopter pilot and police officers in patrol cars with the Miami and Miami-Dade police departments searched for the BMW, police said.

Police officers found Earp at about 11:50 a.m., traveling northbound in the area of Northwest 12 Avenue and Seventh Street in Miami’s Little Havana, police said

Earp turned and crashed into a car at Northwest 17 Avenue and Seventh Street, and into guardrails on the nearby ramp into State Road 836, also known as the Dolphin Expressway.

Earp abandoned the BMW at the ramp and took off running, but police officers caught up to him and arrested him shortly before 12 p.m., along Northwest 17 Avenue.

Detectives were asking anyone with information about the case to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Wilson Louis contributed to this report.

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