Two dead after shootout at suspected West Kendall grow house
Miami-Dade detectives checking a tip about a grow house in West Kendall were met with gunfire; a 30-minute shootout burned the house down, one suspect was arrested, one body was found inside and a third man was found hanged nearby.
🇺🇸 15415 Southwest 57th Street, West Kendall · Florida, United States
Miami-Dade narcotics detectives arrived at 15415 Southwest 57th Street in the Lakes of the Meadow development of West Kendall at about 7pm on Tuesday evening to check a tip about a possible marijuana grow house.[1][2]As they approached the rented house, the occupants opened fire, officers returned fire, and three men fled on foot while the house caught fire for reasons yet unknown.[1]
The shootout ran for an estimated 30 minutes and drew police units from across the county for an all-night manhunt that kept the neighbourhood locked down.[1][2]Police arrested 29-year-old Brian Kelly Howell within 18 hours; the body of 50-year-old Dell Peter DiGiovanni was found hanging some ten blocks away in an apparent suicide, and a third body lay in the charred home, still unidentified the next evening.[1]Police were still seeking a third suspect, 27-year-old Michael Steven DiGiovanni.[1]
Photos and video
Miami-Dade police investigate the crime scene at the Lakes of the Meadow development in West Kendall on 20 February (photo: Roberto Koltun/El Nuevo Herald)Photo details
Two armed suspects entered a marijuana dispensary on Nadeau Street in Florence-Graham on the evening of 8 October 2026 and exchanged gunfire with an employee, 33-year-old Martin Gudines, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The suspects fled, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau appealed for information.
Josepha Littlewolf Basurto, 31, was found shot dead in a pickup at an illegal marijuana grow outside Covelo on 9 July 2026. By 24 July investigators had arrested three men, including two brothers and their father, and were still seeking a 17-year-old charged with homicide.
Mexican farmworker Jaime Alanís García died on 12 July 2025, two days after falling about 30 feet from a greenhouse during a federal immigration raid on the licensed Glass House Farms cannabis farm near Camarillo. DHS said he was neither in custody nor pursued; his family filed a federal claim alleging an illegal search and excessive force, and Mexico weighed its own legal action.
Mendocino County deputies responding to a 911 hang-up near Covelo on 14 May 2025 found one man fatally shot on Hulls Valley Road, two others wounded, firearms and cartridge casings, and a blood trail leading to a large illegal cannabis grow with hoop houses that investigators linked to a drug-trafficking organization.
