*into a vehicle with a hostage https://t.co/qYvWhv1rc1
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 10, 2019
In a world with less terrible / outrageous news every day, I have the feeling this incident might’ve gotten more attention.
… Most of those officers — 13 — were from Miami-Dade Police Department, having followed the truck into Broward County during a long chase, said Rod Skirvin, president of the Broward County Police Benevolent Association.
Four people were killed in the shootout Thursday evening at an intersection in Miramar: two robbery suspects who’d hijacked the truck; a UPS driver they had taken hostage; and a bystander, police said.
The shootout happened as a police chase ended after the hijacked UPS truck got stuck in traffic. Gunfire erupted from inside and outside the truck, though it’s not clear who fired first.
Police officers left their vehicles and crouched behind cars — their own and others at the intersection — as shields as they approached, video from the scene showed.
Suspects Lamar Alexander, 41, and Ronnie Jerome Hill, 41, both of Miami-Dade County, were killed, the FBI said.
Also killed were the hijacked UPS driver, Frank Ordonez — who relatives said had been substituting for a colleague who’d called out from work — and bystander Richard Steven Cutshaw, officials said.
Whether Ordonez and Cutshaw were shot by police is under investigation, the FBI has said.
At least 13 police officers were shot at, but none was injured, according to Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association.
The chase began after Alexander and Hill robbed a jewelry store Thursday afternoon in Coral Gables, near Miami, and hijacked the UPS truck, police said.
Police radioed that gunfire occasionally erupted from the truck even as police chased it, CNN affiliate WSVN reported…
Ooooh, hot pursuit! Stealing jewelry is wrong, and pistol-whipping a store employee is worse, but I can’t see how making sure the perpetrators didn’t escape was worth shooting two people whose only crime was going to work that day.
… “Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” said David Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. The incident “was really, really bad.”
But as chaotic and calamitous as the episode was, it was also “a perfect example” of why police are allowed to use deadly force against dangerous criminals, Klinger said. Authorities said Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill had left a trail of violence behind them that evening. Stopping them by any means — even with bullets — was “absolutely the right thing to do,” Klinger said.
“In a situation like this, the police are reactive,” Klinger added. “This is not a situation they want to be in. Their hand was forced.”
Late-Night Dystopia Open Thread: Floriduh CopsPost + Comments (14)
