Miami-Dade school board member’s son set to appear in criminal court

MIAMI – A man whose father’s stellar career in education includes serving as the superintendent of schools in New Jersey was set to appear in Miami-Dade County court on Monday accused of trying to kill a police officer.

Steve Gallon IV, 33, has been at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center without bond since his arrest on March 9. His father, Steve Gallon III, was the principal of Miami Northwestern Senior High School and has been a serving member of the School Board of Miami-Dade County since 2016.

Detectives believe Gallon IV was trying to help his friend Atiba Moore when he approached an undercover narcotics detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department from behind and shot him. The bullet grazed the undercover detective in the neck.

After a search that involved police officers from the Miami and Miami-Dade police departments, officers arrested Gallon IV and three other men at a house on the corner of Northwest Fifth Avenue and 42 Street, east of Miami’s Liberty City and west of the Design District.

Prosecutors charged Moore, 30, with solicitation to commit first-degree murder, Gallon IV with attempted second-degree murder of a law enforcement officer with a firearm, and Kendrick Watkins, Frederick Watkins, and Andre Darrell with accessory after the fact, records show.

Gallon IV, who lives in Miramar, has an arrest record that includes accusations of marijuana possession, forgery, and grand theft, records show. Attorney Roderick Vereen was representing Gallon IV. Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Judge Alberto Milian was presiding over the case.

Gallon III, 54, did not release a statement about his son’s arrest. He grew up in Liberty City. He was a teenage father to his daughter and had his son when he was in college. After he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from Florida International University, he participated in postdoctoral leadership institutes at Harvard and Stanford.

It’s not the first time Gallon III has been under a cloud of scandal. New Jersey’s public schools banned him from employment after he faced accusations of conspiring to commit theft by deception and theft by deception as an accomplice while he served as the Plainfield schools’ superintendent.

In Florida, he faced similar accusations after charter schools that he was involved in shut down. Miami-Dade voters elected Gallon III, who was the inspiration for the “Light Found in the Dark” documentary, to represent District 1 in 2016 and reelected him to a four-year term in 2020.

This is a developing story.

Coverage of the shooting