Nearly a year after allegedly spitting in a restaurant manager ‘s face, multifamily investor Patrick Carroll is still getting caught up in eyebrow raising incidents.
In the latest bout of trouble, Miami Beach police are investigating reports of gunshots fired at or near Carroll’s waterfront home at 810 Lakeview Drive.
The apartment mogul, who sold his namesake company for $80 million last year, also has cemented a reputation as an allegedly hostile customer at fine dining establishments in Miami and Miami Beach.
On Thursday, Carroll posted three videos on his Instagram account showing Miami Beach police squad cars and cops outside his driveway. In one of the clips, someone filmed Carroll as he spoke briefly to a couple of the officers. He told the cops that he wasn’t going to talk to them without his lawyer being present.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Carroll said. “Look at all the cops though.”
One of the officers responds, “You didn’t do anything wrong? You’re shooting a gun in the back. We don’t know if it is bullets, rounds or anything.”
Carroll then turns around and starts walking back toward his house. “I know my rights,” Carroll said. “Am I under arrest? I just need to know because I am going to ask my lawyer.”
The cop informs Carroll that “we are just trying to find out what is going on.”
In a text message to The Real Deal, Carroll said he engaged in simulated gunplay, but no real bullets were used. “They were blanks,” he said. “I spoke to the cops and they were laughing about it. I was doing it for an [Instagram] video.”
Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson Christopher Bess told Page Six, which first reported the incident, that officers responded to Carroll’s home “regarding allegations of possible gunshots heard in the area.”
During a preliminary inquiry, officers did not find a victim or a crime scene, but the incident remains under investigation “for a more thorough assessment,” Bess said.
Bess did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carroll has a history of engaging in volatile confrontations. Next month will mark the one-year anniversary when Carroll allegedly spit in the face of a Wynwood restaurant manager who allegedly asked him to stop bothering a female patron. The incident was allegedly captured on surveillance video in the restaurant. The manager, Miguel Angel Weill, sued Carroll in June for defamation in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The case is still pending, court records show.
In addition to being banned from Weil’s Wynwood restaurant, Carroll is also prohibited from entering Carbone in Miami Beach and Cote Miami in the Design District for allegedly insulting workers at both restaurants with slurs, Weil’s lawsuit alleges.
Carroll has vehemently denied spitting in Weill’s face and using slurs.
More recently, Carroll was arrested for felony battery in October, Miami-Dade court records show. Two employees of Gold Rush Cabaret in Miami’s Upper Eastside alleged Carroll assaulted them as he was being thrown out of the strip club, an arrest report states. The incident was allegedly recorded by security cameras.
In November, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reduced Carroll’s charge from felony to misdemeanor battery. The case is still pending.
Friday afternoon, Carroll posted a longer video version on Instagram of his interaction with Miami Beach cops, accompanied by a long rant about being “Mr. Misunderstood” and being “harassed by cops (pigs) my whole life.”
Carroll also wrote that The Real Deal, Page Six and other outlets that have written about his escapades are “shitty outdated publications that have tried to destroy my reputation.”
In a follow up Instagram video, Carroll brandishes a firearm and says he is exercising his second amendment right to defend himself because he is a target because he wears expensive flashy jewelry.
“I’m going to protect myself,” Carroll said. “Sorry if I don’t want to get killed.”