Police who engaged in shootout protected by state law

So many bullets perforated the cab of the UPS van, it would have been a miracle if any occupants had survived. —

There was no such miracle that evening in Miramar. Two gunmen, who had hijacked the van earlier that evening after robbing a Coral Gables jewelry store and led a caravan of cruisers on a 45-minute police chase, died in the fusillade. Their hostage, UPS driver Frank Ordoñez, was killed as he tumbled out the passenger door.

The confrontation occurred at rush hour Dec. 5 near the traffic-clogged intersection of Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road. A number of motorists who had been trapped in the gridlock during the firefight called 9-1-1 to report near-death experiences.

“I was in front of the UPS truck when the shooting happened … I got two bullets that go all the way through my truck,” reported one caller.

Another caller counted the bullet holes in her husband’s Hyundai. “One, two, three, four, five. There’s about five shots.” Another said, “I have bullet wounds on the side of my car.” Another: “I got two bullets that go all the way through my truck.”

The callers themselves were physically unscathed, but it would have been a miracle if no bystander had been injured. Like I said: it was not a day for miracles. Richard Cutshaw, a 70-year-old union rep headed home from work, was fatally wounded when a bullet penetrated his rear windshield.

The evening’s only miracle, perhaps, was that others weren’t killed or maimed during the shooting frenzy. At least 18 officers discharged their firearms, 13 from Miami-Dade Police who had chased the hijacked van across the county line. The others were from Pembroke Pines, Miramar and the Florida Highway Patrol.

Video of the confrontation showed officers taking cover behind civilian cars ensnared in traffic. Surely, even amid the chaos, experienced law enforcement officers should have realized that engaging gunmen at a busy intersection would create a profound hazard. For unwary commuters like Richard Curshaw. Certainly, for the hostage UPS driver. Joe Merino, stepfather of 27-year-old Ordoñez, questioned the tactics. “The police are here to serve and protect, but where was the protection for my son?”

Investigators from Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FBI and local jurisdictions will likely take months to sort this out. Four years passed before a Miami-Dade State Attorney’s investigation concluded that a similarly chaotic police shooting during the 2011 Memorial Day festivities on Miami Beach was legally justified.

Officers had closed-in on a car that had been driven menacingly down Collins Avenue. Driver Raymond Herisse had knocked over a police officer, swerved across the road, onto the sidewalk and back, scattering cops and pedestrians, running over two police bicycles, sideswiping parked cars. When Herisse finally stopped, he ignored police orders and “refused to assume a posture of surrender.”

For all that, his behavior hardly seemed proportionate to what came next. A dozen officers fired their pistols, leaving the blue Hyundai with 87 bullet holes and Herisse with 16 “perforating, penetrating or grazing” wounds. Too many to determine which bullet had actually killed him. (Three days after the shooting, Miami Beach police reported that they had belatedly discovered a pistol in the car that had somehow been missed in the initial search. Lab reports indicated that the gun had not been discharged.)

But for all that, Florida’s fleeing felon law and its famously permissive Stand Your Ground self-defense statute made it inevitable that investigators would conclude that the officers bore criminal culpability.

More troubling than the technical legality of the Miami Beach shooting was the utter recklessness of the police action. Officers had fired at least 124 shots. Thirty-seven bullets, despite the close range, missed both the car and Herisse. (The erratic shooting of trained police officers cast doubt on the NRA’s contention that we’d all be safer if untrained armed civilians could intervene in criminal situations.)

Four innocent bystanders were struck by police gunfire. One victim was left with a bullet lodged so close to his heart; doctors decided they couldn’t risk removing it. Another was shot in the hip and required reconstructive surgery. A third was shot in the arm and leg. The fourth took a bullet in the arm.

Just as in the Miami Beach case, if there’s an outrage attached to the police conduct in Miramar, it’s not about an illegal action. Florida law, almost certainly, will shield the police officers who exchanged fire with a pair of career criminals, no matter the collateral damage.

That won’t bring much solace to the families of Frank Ordoñez and Richard Cutshaw.

Fred Grimm, a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has worked as a journalist in South Florida since 1976. Reach him by email at leogrimm@gmail.com or on Twitter: @grimm_fred