Funeral Vigil Intrusion Ends With Gunfight

Strangers burst into a funeral chapel before dawn Wednesday, ejecting mourners, performing rituals on a body and then starting a gunfight among themselves.

One man was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest.

Three women were holding a vigil for a dead relative at the funeral home in the Little Havana section when about 10 men entered. Police would not identify the dead man.

“These men started performing Santeria acts to the body of the deceased,” said police Lt. Bill Schwartz. “They put some ash in the sign of a cross on his forehead, they took a bottle of rum and stuck it in his right hand, they lit candles, then they ordered the family members out.”

Santeria is an Afro-Caribbean religion that melds Catholic saints and rituals with animal sacrifices, hexes and blessings.

Schwartz was unable to say if the men had mistaken the dead man for someone they knew but said they may have been drinking.

Minutes after the women were ousted, shots were fired inside.

“There was a major gunfight going on. There’s furniture tipped over and bullet holes in walls, blood on the floor,” Schwartz said.

Police stopped a man who was running away with a gun, and discovered he had been shot in the chest. Jerry Arturo Spencer, 42, of Homestead was in serious but stable condition after surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital. No charges had been filed against him.

Police rounded up six other men, but “they’re also playing ignorant,” Schwartz said. All were released without charges.