A 69-year-old pastor is in critical but stable condition after a gunman opened fire on the Northwest Miami-Dade home in which she was sleeping with eight other people early Tuesday morning, Miami-Dade police said.
Annie Wimberly was struck twice by bullets from a high-powered rifle around 3:59 a.m., Det. Javier Baez told HuffPost Miami.
Baez said none of the other five adults and three children sleeping at 5981 NW 32 Avenue were injured, and police said they were not ready to release any apparent motive for the crime.
Baez confirmed there had been a previous incident in which shots were fired at the home on October 26, but results of that investigation were not immediately available.
"She was in her bed, asleep," daughter Gena Wiggins told WSVN. "These thugs came out and shot the house up."
Wimberly is a pastor at Friendly Temple Holiness Church in Miami, reports WSVN. County records show she has owned the home in the neighborhood platted as Hialeah Heights since 1977.
Neighbor Howard Willis said the weapon sounded like a machine gun when it split the morning quiet, reports the Miami Herald.
"I had got up to pray at three..." Willis told the Herald. "I heard a sound 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."
Wiggins told WSVN her mother's kidney had to be removed, and her liver and an artery were damaged.