Gun used in Miami International Airport shooting was stolen from car in parking garage, Sheriff's Office says

David Goodhue, Douglas Hanks and Grethel Aguila, Miami Herald on Sep 25, 2026

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MIAMI — The gun used by the man who fired four shots toward the terminal at Miami International Airport on Wednesday was stolen from a car parked in a short-term lot this month, court records show.

Francisco Ivan Mendiola, 31, shot toward the terminal while standing on the second floor of a short-term parking lot around 4 p.m., hitting a trash can three times and the windshield of an unoccupied Dodge Challenger once, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies quickly detained Mendiola after witnesses, who were ducking for cover, pointed him out. No one was injured. He was booked into jail on many charges. On Friday, he was hit with another charge, grand theft of a firearm. The semiautomatic handgun that he used was stolen from a car in the Flamingo lot on Sept. 2, according to his arrest report.

The person who owns the gun didn’t report it stolen at the time because he or she did not know the serial number, according to the report.

Mendiola is homeless, and given the date the gun was stolen, it appears he frequents the airport.

Ron Book, chair of Miami-Dade County’s Homeless Trust, said the airport is a regular visiting spot for some in the area’s homeless population, though they’re told to leave when encountered by airport security or staff.

Miami-Dade’s homeless agency has caseworkers, accompanied by sheriff’s deputies, at MIA about twice a week to look for people experiencing homelessness, Book said. When encountered, those people are offered help getting to a homeless shelter and told they can’t stay at the airport, he said.

“They will be given a written warning by the sheriff’s team that they’re trespassing,” Book said. “If they choose to stay, they run the risk of being arrested.”

Detective Samantha Choon, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, said anyone who sees someone at the airport who doesn’t appear to have a reason to be there should approach the nearest deputy, and that could be enough for law enforcement to approach that person.

Book didn’t have numbers for homeless encounters at MIA, but a recent survey of the countywide homeless population found seven homeless people at the airport.

“Sometimes you encounter a couple of people. It’s not a deluge,” he said. “It’s a transient population. Someone might be at MIA one day, and downtown another.”

He said the outreach visits began in the summer of 2024 after complaints about homeless people at MIA and its grounds. He said the sprawling terminal is a target of the outreach visits, along with some areas outside and the nearby Greyhound bus terminal.

Book said Homeless Trust staff was notified Thursday about the shooter also being homeless. He said there was no record of Mendiola being contacted by outreach workers on MIA visits, but that he did visit a downtown Miami homeless shelter in August for a day.

After deputies detained Mendiola, they found a gun in his backpack, and also two 16-round capacity magazines, each loaded with 12 bullets, the sheriff’s office said. When one of the deputies secured the weapon, the magazine was not inserted, but when she racked the slide, a round was ejected, Mendiola’s arrest report stated.

Deputies found four spent shell casings where they found Mendiola, according to the report.

Sercurity-camera footage showed him walking from the Flamingo parking garage toward the short-term parking garage carrying a backpack that matched the one in which deputies found the gun and magazines, the report states.

Mendiola was heavily intoxicated and uncooperative when deputies arrested him, the report states. Court records show he has lived in South Florida for about a year and was convicted of petit theft during the summer after he stole seven Buzz Ball alcoholic drinks from a Fresco Y Mas supermarket on Northwest Seventh Street in June, court records show.

He was also arrested in December on drunk-driving charges that might have stemmed from an incident at a California airport, prosecutors said during his bond hearing Thursday morning.

He is being represented by attorneys with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. He is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a total bond of $26,000.