Published: October 23, 2025 at 10:54 AM
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — A 47-year-old man is accused of attacking a co-worker with a machete during a dispute over a parking space at a Coral Gables construction site, police confirmed.
According to an arrest report from the Coral Gables Police Department, officers were dispatched Wednesday to a reported battery involving a deadly weapon.
Upon arrival, police said they found the victim suffering from a red mark on his right shoulder.
The victim told police he and the suspect, Meldin Omar Lopez, a Honduran national, had been arguing about parking when Lopez struck him on the back with the flat side of a machete, according to the report.
Two witnesses who were also working at the construction site told officers they saw Lopez hit the victim and that the victim never mentioned having a gun.
A third worker took the machete away and hid it in a pile of sand until Coral Gables police arrived.
Police said Lopez was taken into custody and later made a statement following a Miranda warning, though the contents of that confession were redacted from the publicly-released report.
They said the machete was collected as evidence, and Lopez was booked into jail on one count of aggravated battery with a weapon causing great bodily harm.
As of Thursday morning, he remains on an immigration hold at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
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Ryan Mackey