By David J. Neal, Charles Rabin
Source Miami Herald
The man shot by police on a Doral rooftop Monday afternoon had escaped from a nearby Florida Department of Corrections facility on Friday.
As of Tuesday morning, Michael Prouty sits in Miami-Dade Corrections’ Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center charged with burglary of an occupied structure, attempted burglary of an occupied structure, grand theft auto, aggravated assault on a law enforcement office, fleeing and eluding an officer and resisting an officer without violence.
“TGK,” as those familiar with Miami-Dade’s incarceration location on the edge of Doral call it, is next door to the state Department of Corrections’ Miami North Community Release Center, 7090 NW 41st St. That’s where the 37-year-old Prouty had been until about 11:30 a.m. Friday, according to the Florida Corrections Department’s online database. He had just over five months left on a four-year, 10-month sentence for robbery and burglary.
Before his most recent stay with the Florida prison system, Prouty did four years for robbery from 2010 through 2014 and nine months, 28 days spanning 2016 and 2017 for burglary, sudden snatching and his third petty theft conviction. Between his second and third prison turns, the Arkansas native lived in Boynton Beach.
Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Walker said inmates at community release centers must request to be placed there, with approval hinging on victim impact, conviction record, disciplinary record and length of time remaining on the sentence. Inmates moved to a CRC have to have a job within the facility or with an approved employer and must wear an electronic monitoring device.
“FDC Community Release Centers (CRC) allow inmates to obtain gainful employment, establish a path to successful re-entry in to the community and implement habits conducive to a productive lifestyle,” Walker said in an email to the Miami Herald.
Of Prouty’s escape, Walker said only he “departed the Miami North Community Release Center without permission.”
He didn’t go far.
An elevator company and a climb to the roof
According to the arrest report, Prouty was spotted in a stolen 2002 Ford Escape by the Florida Highway Patrol as he headed west on Northwest 12th Street near 78th Avenue and by a Miami-Dade officer around Northwest 12th Street and 87th Avenue.
The Doral Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center, already notified about a stolen vehicle, located the car when an electronic license plate reader at an intersection picked it up.
“We started to saturate the area,” said police spokesman Rey Valdes.
After skedaddling from the Miami-Dade officer, police say, Prouty left the car at 8290 NW 25th St.
That’s where, at 3:13 p.m, a Doral officer found both the car and someone saying Prouty had headed east and jumped a fence into the area around the commercial building at 8000 NW 25th St.
The report says he tried to get into Oracle Elevator’s offices, Suite 400, but “the manager slammed and locked the door.” Prouty was more successful, the report says, at getting into Suite 500. Valdes said he told workers in there that he had a weapon.
That was passed along to police through 9-1-1 calls.
Somehow, Valdes said, Prouty managed to climb up into the ceiling tiles and eventually get to the roof of 8000 NW 25th St.
Doral police climbed onto the rooftop at 7997 NW 25th St. and saw Prouty, who according to Valdes was “very agitated, going back and forth.” Valdes said Prouty told police on the roof that he was armed.
When Prouty gestured at his waistband, Valdes said, several officers fired.
“He ran toward officers. They yelled ‘don’t do it.’ He presented a threat to officers. He was shot in the leg,” Valdes said.
Prouty was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Online records say he was booked into TGK at 4:29 a.m. Tuesday.
The shooting will be investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, as is standard.
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