BY LUISA YANEZ AND SCOTT HIAASEN
The Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Miami-Dade police spent more than four hours looking for the wrong suspect in the shooting of four officers Thursday morning.
 Suspect Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, 25, is being sought by police in the shooting of four Miami-Dade police officers. One has died. |
Police say they are now searching for 25-year-old Shawn Sherwin LaBeet. Investigators believe LaBeet has been using the identity of Kevin Wehner, whom police first identified as the suspect in the Cutler Bay shooting that left one officer dead and three injured.
Police spokeswoman Linda O’Brien blamed the mistaken identity on a witness who lied to detectives about the suspect.
“A woman associated with LaBeet lied to us,” O’Brien told The Herald. “We have been misled.”
Police believe LaBeet may have been using Wehner’s identification, O’Brien said.
Wehner, in fact, is in Jacksonville. He went to the police there after learning he was named in the South Dade shooting.
''It’s a case of mistaken identity,’' Wehner’s uncle told the Miami Herald.
Margate police officers set up a perimeter around 3 p.m. Thursday south of Royal Palm Boulevard and State Road 7 as part of the investigation, said Detective Chip Kolenda, a spokesman for Margate police.
LaBeet appears to have relatives in Margate, records show.
Copyright 2007 The Miami Herald