Miami Realtor’s Gun Was Seized Months Before Serial Killings—But He Got It Back
RED FLAGS
Police were forced to return Maceo’s gun to him after an involuntary psychiatric evaluation. The same gun was allegedly used 18 months later in a killing spree.
Willy Suarez Maceo, a real estate agent arrested for allegedly targeting homeless men in a murder spree, had a run-in with police more than a year prior to the December shootings, the Miami Herald reports. Maceo’s parents called 911 to say that their bipolar son was rambling about conspiracies, refusing to take his medication, and racking the slide of his Glock pistol. He underwent an involuntary psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s “Baker Act.” Police took his gun at the time but they were forced to return it within 72 hours of his discharge from hospital. A detective asked to the department’s legal bureau if they could get a “risk protection order” that would keep the gun out of Maceo’s hands for another year, but the bureau decided there was insufficient evidence. Nearly two years later, police say Maceo used the same gun to shoot three homeless men.
