BY DAVID OVALLE

dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

Four murders and now a detective peppered with bird shot -- police say this year has been unusually violent in the marijuana ''grow house'' business.

Investigators said Thursday that Yoel Padron Garcia, a guard at a hydroponics lab in Naranja, confessed to shooting at undercover narcotics detectives, wounding one. Garcia was arrested in Dania Beach, 40 miles to the north.

Miami-Dade police announced Garcia's arrest Thursday, hours after Miami-Dade Detective Edwin Diaz was released from Jackson Memorial Hospital. They took the opportunity to stress a rise in violence associated with grow houses.

''This is another example of the fact there is no harmless marijuana,'' said Maj. Charles Nanney, of the narcotics bureau.

Garcia was charged with three counts of attempted murder of a law-enforcement officer, armed trafficking and grand theft.

Police said that Wednesday night, undercover narcotics detectives Diaz, J.P. Chatel and Julio Benavides Jr. were scoping out a house at 15200 SW 272nd St. in Naranja when they spotted Garcia.

As they approached and identified themselves in the front yard, Garcia fired a shotgun at them, police said. Birdshot peppered Diaz's right torso, leg and face.

''One more inch and he would have lost an eye,'' Nanney said.

Chatel returned fire. So did Garcia, police said. Both missed.

The cops retreated. Garcia escaped in a Chevrolet Silverado, eluding a massive manhunt for the night. In a driving rain, Miami-Dade's Special Response Team surrounded the house for hours.

They found no one inside early Thursday. ''A search warrant was executed . . . and 129 marijuana plants were recovered,'' said Assistant Miami-Dade Police Director Jim Loftus.

Homicide detectives -- helped by a flood of state, local and federal investigators -- tracked Garcia to a friend's house in the 4900 block of Southwest 28th Avenue, just south of Griffin Road, in Dania Beach.

Police later found the shotgun near the Naranja house, a five-bedroom, three-bedroom house on a five-acre property.

Diaz, hired by Miami-Dade in 1998, was released from the hospital Thursday morning.

Investigators said sophisticated indoor marijuana farms, with state-of-the-art lamps and set-ups, have proliferated in recent years, especially in suburban homes in South Miami-Dade.

As local and federal officers have taken notice, hydroponic labs have spread. Lab workers from Miami-Dade have been arrested in other counties including Polk, Collier and Lee, where cheaper homes and seemingly less scrutiny have fueled the operations.

A statewide series of raids in April netted 135 arrests and 3,400 plants, most of them in South Florida. The same day, the Florida Legislature passed stiffer penalties for growing marijuana.

Nevertheless, Nanney said, the trade remains profitable -- and the homes attractive for robbers.

So far in 2008, four people have been murdered in grow house-related violence. A fifth man was found dismembered in South Miami-Dade, though police believe he was killed in 2006.

Because of the unprecedented spike in such killings, Miami-Dade's homicide bureau is considering adding ''grow house'' to the categories they use to track murder motives.

Celestina Fiallo's boyfriend grew marijuana inside their Cutler Ridge house. It led to her demise.

Rustled from their sleep one night in May, two men forced their way into the house. A gun battle erupted.

Fiallo, 42, was shot dead. The robbers remain unknown.

On Sept. 11, officers found Jose A. Vento, 42, and Julian Brajales, 44, shot to death inside a Kendall house. Officers also found a full marijuana-growing operation. Bullet casings littered the house. The case is unsolved.

Nine days later, in an unrelated case, Javier Hernandez, 42, and Roberto Diaz, 45, guarding a grow house, were robbed by four men. Hernandez was shot and killed. Diaz was charged with armed marijuana trafficking.

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If pot was legal, everyone would have some and there would be no reason to steal it and the cops would be free to solve actual crimes.

exactly, money is what attracts the violence

+1 prohibition is the problem here.

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Grower's Bookshelf

a whopping 4 murders???? we have that damn near every week in new orleans for no reason.... at least there was a possible motive.... the media/police blow this way out of proportion.....

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