The pastor of a Miami church was shot and critically injured at her Brownsville home at 4 a.m., Dec. 27.
Sixty-nine year old Annie Wimberly, was asleep when unknown attackers sprayed the home with bullets from a high-powered rifle. Eight other people were asleep in the home at the time.
Five adults and three children were in the house at 5981 NW 32 Avenue. None of them were injured. Wimberly sleeps in a bedroom at the front of the house, which bore the impact of the gunfire.
The pastor, who serves at Friendly Temple Holiness Church in Miami, remains in the Intensive Care Unit in stable condition at Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Wimberly, according to her daughter, needed to have a kidney removed. Her liver and a main artery to the heart were damaged.
“She’s still in ICU,” said her daughter Gena Wiggins. She was in bed asleep. “These thugs came out and shot up the house.”
Wiggins was not home at the time of the shooting. Out with her friends, Wiggins, 46, told reporters that the house was shot at about a month earlier.
“My mom is in there fighting for her life. She don’t bother people, she go out and help people when she can,” said her daughter. “I don’t know why they did it but they need to get them off the streets.
“We have babies, newborns, kids, teens in there,” Wimberly said.
Neighbor Howard Willis, who woke at 3 a.m. to pray, said he heard 25 to 30 rounds of a weapon that sounded like a machine gun.
“I stayed there and I stayed still. I didn’t know whether to keep praying or hit the ground.”
Police are asking for information.
(Source: Miami-Dade)
To speak with a Miami personal injury lawyer about an injury caused by another’s reckless actions, contact Sean M. Cleary.