MIAMI — A 17-year-old transgender girl was stabbed almost 20 times at Miami International Airport this weekend, according to a police report filed in court on Monday.
The girl, whose identity has yet to be released, was attacked “without provocation” just after 11:30 p.m. Saturday on the fourth floor of MIA’s Concourse J in the pre-security area, according to police. She was able to escape to the third floor, where officers found her.
Alexander Paul Love, 29, is now jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in connection to the stabbing. Police say he ambushed the girl with a butcher knife and sliced her 18 times, including her neck, face and legs.
A judge ordered Love held without bond on the attempted murder charges after a Monday morning court appearance.
Police have yet to confirm if Love and the girl knew each other, though county officials told the Miami Herald Love and the teen were living at the airport.
Ralph Cutie, director and chief executive officer of the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, which oversees MIA, said it’s unknown how much time Love had spent at the airport.
Cutie said police do nightly sweeps and try to offer homeless individuals at the airport shelter assistance. If they return, they could be issued a written citation for trespassing.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told the Herald her office was “going to review all of our protocols.”
“We don’t want our airport to be a shelter, and we are going to continue to work diligently to find alternatives,” she said. “We have very excellent services to help the homeless around Miami-Dade County.”
Moments before the attack, the girl was sitting on the floor of the airport, eating a meal, according to the report. Surveillance footage captured Love staring at the girl before taking the knife out of his backpack.
Police recovered the butcher knife at the scene, the report states. Love was detained by Customs and Border Protection personnel shortly after the struggle.
Public records show Love, who’s from Ohio, was arrested there on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in 2016. That case was dismissed shortly thereafter. The report states Love is now homeless in South Florida, and court records indicate he was arrested in Miami-Dade on low-level offenses in 2023.
When Love spoke with detectives, he told them he was possibly drugged.
Amid the initial chaos, police were called to the scene for an alleged active shooter, setting off a frenzy at the airport. That, however, turned out to be a false report.
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(Miami Herald staff writer Vinod Sreeharsha contributed to this report.)
