A SWAT standoff ended on Friday morning after a troubled disability judge killed himself inside a southwest Miami home while he was holding three hostages.
Timothy Maher, a disability judge at a downtown Miami Social Security Administration office, held three hostages for about 10 hours Friday inside a home in south Miami-Dade County before fatally shooting himself with a rifle after a standoff with police.
Miami-Dade police and SWAT were called to the home located near Southwest 113th Passage and Southwest 240th Street late Thursday night. A negotiator was trying to communicate with Maher using a megaphone repeatedly saying, “We want a peaceful end to this.” Hours after the standoff began, Maher stopped communicating with the negotiators. Soon after, police heard a gunshot in the home and then entered to find Maher dead of a self-inflicted gun shot wound.
Judge Timothy Maher was identified by Miami-Dade Detective Alvaro Zabaleto. According to Zabaleto, Maher was arrested as recently as August 14th for making threats to his ex-girlfriend with a gun in front of their two year old son. Detective Zabaleto also identified the three hostages: Ana Rodriguez (49), Jose Rodriguez (49), and their thirteen year old daughter. After Maher shot himself, the three hostages ran out of the house unharmed.
Maher’s August 14th arrest was not the only violent incident he was involved in this summer. A Miami Shores Police Report shows that on June 30th, 2018, Maher was involved in a road rage incident where he followed the other driver to his home cussing him out and calling him racial slurs. When police were called to the home, Maher claimed that the other driver pulled out a gun. The police searched the car and there was no sign of a gun. At that point, Maher told the police he was a judge and that the home should be searched. After speaking with the Miami-Date state attorneys office, the police were told they did mot have a cause for a search and no arrests were made.
