Save my name and email to use for future comments. The five-minute gunfight resulted in the deaths of both felons and two agents and left another three agents - including Mireles - clinging to . Both men had no criminal record before their crime spree which began with a single murder and robbery on October 4th, 1985 where young Emilio Briel was killed by the two men at a quarry at the edge of the Everglades that was used for target practice. that "the game is a game of inches." This is also true in life and death gun battles like the FBI Miami shootout. The firefight claimed the lives of Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan. The semi-automatic pistol chambered in 10mm was thought to have better stopping power than previously issued service weapons but also proved to be more difficult to control for the agents and as such the .40 S&W round became popular with law-enforcement due to its less aggressive recoil. Special Agent Edmundo Mireles is released from South Miami Hospital thirteen days after the shootout. The man who stopped the end the bloody incidentSpecial Agent Edmundo Mireleschronicled the events in his masterfully written book FBI Miami Firefight: Five Minutes that Changed the Bureau. A series of two other unmarked bureau Buicks joined the low-speed tail as it meandered for two minutes a few blocks each way. Mireles said that he raged against the dying of the light, and through sheer will was able to stop the cop killers from injuring more agents and getting away. It is, after all, one of the most infamous incidents in FBI history. Platt also fired a total of six shots from two .357 Magnum revolvers. The Miami Shootout, as the now notorious event has come to be known, demonstrated with lethal accuracy just how behind the weapons and tactics curve the FBI was in 1986. But of at least equal importance is how the shootout changed the FBI training scene. Two FBI agents, Jerry Dove and Benjamin Grogan, were killed during the April 1986 "Miami Shootout," one of the most violent firefights in the agency's history. The Miami FBI Shootout - The Lost Tapes. Photo: Miami-Dade PD. The fight was over. Two FBI agents were fatally shot and three agents were wounded in a shootout as they executed a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, on Tuesday morning, the FBI said. A full, first-hand account by the man who ended the fight is available here. After a furious four-minute shootout in which 145 total rounds were fired, the two bad guys were killed, but so were two agents, while the others were all wounded. TOPSAIL BEACH, N.C. (WNCN) - A North Carolina man, who lived with kidney disease for more than two decades, is starting the new year with a new kidney and new hope for the future after his wife donated her kidney to him. And then there were the bullets themselves. Two Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan died in the line of duty. I. Mireles did this unconsciously as an automatic habit that was the byproduct of disciplined training. Advancing on the car, he fired his pump-action shotgun at Platt five times, injuring his feet. Test 5: Wallboard (drywall) at 10 feet. Despite life-threatening injuries, he managed to move offensively and terminate the lethal threat, while fighting off an overwhelming desire to surrender to the fatigue that was overcoming his body and mind. Infamously known a the 1986 Miami Shootout forever changed law enforcement training, equipment and tactics throughout the United States. Even as the new weapon fielding process unfolded, the FBI also changed its rules to allow agents to up their personally owned firepower, with every agent who had the funding to buy an assault rifle and then qualify with it, Mireles said. Joe Raedle/Getty Images SUNRISE, FloridaTwo FBI agents were killed Tuesday morning while serving a warrant at the home of a South Florida man suspected of possessing child pornography.The officers killed were Special Agent Daniel Alfin and Special Agent Laura Schwartzenberger, the FBI said on Tuesday afternoon. SA Doves Smith & Wesson 459 service pistol (Photo by FBI). Circumstances can make it extremely difficult for officers to identify friend and foe in the chaos of an engagement, but every officer must know that they have positively identified their target as a threat before pulling the trigger. The pair targeted another armored car in January 1986, shooting a guard with a shotgun and a Ruger Mini-14. The 1986 FBI Miami shootout was a gun battle that occurred on April 11, 1986 in an unincorporated region of Dade County in South Florida (renamed Miami-Dade on November 13, 1997) between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers.During the firefight, FBI Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan were killed, while five other agents were wounded. The two robbery suspects, William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt were also killed. Buy, Sell, and Trade your Firearms and Gear. The group consensus on handgun ammo was that size did matter. Editor's Note: On April 11, 1986, in Miami, Florida, eight FBI agents and two bank robbers engaged in a five-minute gunfight. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to man of skill, blah blah blah, time and chance happen to them all.. 9 a.m.: A squad of more than a dozen FBI agents in 11 cars are about to conduct a stakeout of banks along South Dixie Highway. Although Mireles was under significant stress and hovering on the edge of bleeding out, he holstered his revolver as directed. The hardware only gets you so far. Shootings like the Miami Dade FBI shootout are interesting to study to get a glimpse into the doctrines and methods used by law enforcement throughout the history of our country. Platt returned fire with the Mini-14 and struck McNeill. . Federal agents quickly scrambled and chased the boat but the suspected drug traffickers opened fire at the federal agents. However, the .40 round is still in use today. And as the pair attempted to start the Buick, Mireles pulled his .357 revolver and fired six rounds, killing Matix by severing his spinal cord, and killing the already fatally wounded Platt with a shot to the chest. Harrell tells us that the supposed lessons of Miami Dade have always frustrated him: people tend to focus on minutiae that really means nothing in the long term; the larger, more important lessons receive little attention in most folks minds; people wrongly try to use the incident as an example to prove a point; other offer opinions based on their ignorance of the incident. In the tests where hollow point bullets had to penetrate barriers like dry wall and plywood, expansion was rare. FREE Grant assistance! Now the couple hopes to encourage others to consider the gift of kidney donation. Recognizing the danger, he raised his barrel skywards to avoid muzzling his partner and was almost simultaneously shot in the arm and head by a .223 caliber rifle. Mireles reported that he and his fellow agents felt a sense of survivor guilt and questioned whether they could have done something different or better that would have changed the outcome and saved their friends. Its easy for our families to get ignored in the shuffle of police work, and Mireles experience demonstrates the critical importance of caring for this most precious resource. Miami Shootout, with Ed Mireles Jr., FBI Agent (ret) Ed Mireles Jr., retired FBI, joined The Protectors Podcast to talk about his career, including his recovery from being seriously wounded in one of the most famous shootouts in U.S. history. While they struggled to reload and maneuver, Platt simply replaced his magazine and continued to fire. Concealed Carry: Point Shooting Vs Aimed Fire, Taking A Spin With The Limited Edition Korth Mongoose Silver, FBI Miami Firefight: Five Minutes that Changed the Bureau, SHOT Show 2023 Range Day: Oracle Arms 2311. He also addresses the many what ifs that inevitably spring up when people who talk about such things discuss the potentialities of violent encounters since Miami Dade featured several of those. The Miami Shootout, he says, schooled the law enforcement community on how little they understood about shooting in and around vehicles. Edmundo Mireles is a former FBI agent and author of. Both of their wives died under suspicious circumstances, both seemed fairly normal to their Florida friends and neighbors, and neither had a criminal record. Police1 readers should also monitor Mireleswebsite for information about upcoming presentations and appearances because hes a gifted speaker with a vitally important message. When the chase abruptly terminated in a vehicle crash and the gunfight began, responding FBI and Metro-Dade PD units didnt know where to find their brothers, and it took several valuable minutes for them to locate the scene. All rights reserved. Popular content related to Johnny Rebel & Rockabilly. Note: Works that are considered "public records" but were not created by a state or municipal government agency may be copyrighted by their author; the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prevents state law from overriding the author's right to copyright protection that is granted by federal law. The Miami Shootout, as the now notorious event has come to be known, demonstrated with lethal accuracy just how behind the weapons and tactics curve the FBI was in 1986. . Test 7: Automobile glass at 10 feet. Required fields are marked *. The Players Army buddies Michael Platt and William Matix had a lot in common. couldnt figure out how to stop the completely. Meanwhile, Platt went to town with his Ruger Mini-14 firing so fast that one agent later told a TV reporter that he thought Platt was shooting a fully automatic rifle. Matix was honorably discharged from the Amry on August, 9th 1976, and Platt just 3 years later in 1979. The infamous 1986 Miami Shootout forever changed law enforcement training, equipment and tactics. In the history of the FBI, 36 agents have been killed in adversarial action. interacts online and researches product purchases Most of the agents werent wearing body armor, but even if they had been, tests reveal the vests issued to Agent personnel would not stop the .223-caliber rounds that were fired by Michael Lee Platt, the report states. One-hundred and fifty shots were fired during the incident. (WGNO) A man who claims he was running from police was rescued from a tree and then arrested in St. Charles Parish. Thirty-five years ago, six (some would say seven or eight) FBI agents cornered two armed robbery suspects in their car in Miami, Florida. Popular content related to Johnny Rebel & Country music. (FBI). That is why the FBIs ballistic testing was so cutting edge and important for law enforcement across the country. Updated: Jan 15, 2023 / 10:43 PM EST. Test 6: Plywood at 10 feet. (Two pieces of standard 1/2 gypsum wallboard spaced 3-1/2 apart.) All structured data from the file namespace is available under the. Propping his Mini-14 against his uninjured left shoulder, he continued to engage the agents. This comprehensive understanding helped to answer questions and erase nagging doubts. All rights reserved. The numbers meant that every two agents would have a shotgun or MP-5 with them in case they needed more firepower. February 2, 2021 / 5:20 PM / CBS Miami. 15 ratings3 reviews. All other things aside, the Miami Shootout was an ammunition failure. On April 11, 1986, FBI Special Agent Ed Mireles and seven of his fellow agents fought against two heavily armed felons in a desperate battle in an unincorporated part of Miami, Florida. Ballistic gelatin, a testing medium scientifically correlated to simulate muscle tissue, was used in the testing. Losers. * William Matix: S&W M3000 12-gauge shotgun, one round #6 shot fired. Another lesson tied to the wound ballistics and caliber debate was the bullet capacity of law enforcement handguns. They werent looking for a gunfight, particularly not one of the deadliest days in the FBIs history. Both Matix and Platt were married multiple times before the robberies and subsequent shootout took place but it is unclear if any of the circumstances behind the deaths and suicideof either of the perpetrators previous spouses was because of their own actions or just a sad coincidence. Police investigate the scene of a shootout in Miami on April 11, 1986, which left two FBI agents and two armed robbery suspects dead and five other agents wounded. Welcome to Autopsyfiles.org - Home Page - Autopsy Reports of . couldn't figure out how to stop the completely. Miami FBI Special Agents Benjamin Grogan, left, and Jerry Dove. There was no vehicle material taught by the FBI, and no vehicle material taught by anyone. You're responsible. Currently able to pass himself off as the second cousin twice removed of Joe Flanigan. The FBI also authorized agents to purchase their own assault rifles for use on duty. Holding a large frame weapon requires large hands. Firearms & Survivalists Lifestyle It wasnt until after the duo had killed a man for his car, seriously injured a second man while stealing his black 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and shot up eight FBI agents that anyone even suspected they shared a common hobby: robbing banks. I Made this collection for all Rockabilly and . He's a grieving husband and father who just happened to have collected $350,000 in insurance money . The five-minute gunfight resulted in the deaths of both felons and two agents and left another three agents including Mireles clinging to life with serious injuries. Wow. He underwent training based on the incident and later taught that same course. While gelatin testing is commonplace, this was the first time that anyone had developed an objective methodology for the evaluation of law enforcement ammunition based upon real world shooting situations. We were all armed with everything we were legally authorized to carry on that day A bad guy can carry whatever the heck he wants, Mireles told RECOIL. After this supposed non-survivable hit, Platt continued to fight and went on to kill Jerry. Honestly, it never had to happen. 02:14. Photo by FBI. The FBI on Wednesday named the man who shot five agents, killing two, as they tried to execute a search . The suspects were able to make off with the money and this crime was left unsolved until after the April 11th shooting. One FBI Vehicle (right) forced the Platt/Matix Vehicle (middle) into a tree ending the car chase and began the shootout. In short, in Miami, in 1986, the FBI had a shootout with two bad guys and it was the biggest firefight in the FBI's recent history. The FBI designed a gun rack that was secure and out of sight yet still accessible to the agents in the front seat. It just wasnt in the thought, he said. Included in the collection is a Coca-Cola Friendship Card that revamps the brand's . Even as he lay in a daze after being shot in the head and having his arm destroyed by rifle fire, he still maintained situational awareness, tracked the location of the felons and kept his weapon oriented toward the likely threat. One-hundred and fifty shots were fired during the incident. Paul has the information and the experience to make the judgments he does. Two of them, their service prompted by duty, were shot to . Forensic Analysis of the April 11, 1986, FBI Firefight is truly a magnificent achievement, with never-before seen full color crime scene and autopsy photos, as well as painstakingly detailed graphic illustrations of not only the Miami killing field, but the wounds Platt and Matix received. Get FBI Updates Vault Home FBI Miami Shooting, April 11, 1986 . Just wanted to read about the Miami Shoot!!! You need to pay for the officers killed and injured. One lost his weapon entirely. Agent Doves pistol, covered in blood and photographed at the scene, was shot through the center of the slide, locking the slide to the rear. Under stress, we revert to our habits make sure you program good ones into your brain. Thats when Mireles, who was seriously wounded in the left arm early on, saw his chance. The two bad guys, Platt and Matix, were killed. The crime scene in Dade county after the shootout. An event like this firefight sends out ripples in the pond that travel far, and officers and agency leaders need to account for this and provide help to all those affected not just the direct participants. What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 16 of the book, titled: Five Minutes that Changed the Bureau. Below is a description of the armament that the FBI Agents engaged Matix and Platt with: In addition to their issued and backup weapons, Agents McNeill and Mireles had Remington 870 Shotguns in their vehicles. He kept fighting. The story of the April 11, 1986 FBI shootout in Miami as told by S/A Ed Mireles, a participant, survivor and hero of the firefight. The firefight claimed the lives of Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan. Twice (once in the main text and once in the firepower photo caption), the article notes the agents had "five revolvers," yet the photo poses *six* revolvers in FBI firepower. Despite arguments to the contrary, the decision to make a felony stop was made and the FBI agents attempted to stop the vehicle. 00:00. Paperback. These tests eliminated the 9mm and .38 Special. After knocking off a string of banks over several months and attempting a few armored car heists, they eventually made a mistake. Had Mireles been trained and equipped to self-apply a tourniquet, its likely he wouldnt have come so close to death and wouldnt have struggled to maintain consciousness in the middle of the gunfight. I had seen this particular video before, so when it was assigned to me, I immediately moved it to the top of my priority list. Most shots through windshield glass and car doors stripped out about 50 percent of the bullet weight as it passed through the barrier. Regular FBI agents (non-SWAT trained) could only purchase semi-automatic assault rifles, had to register their weapon with the FBI, and had to qualify with their weapons a minimum of once a year. Thats why Petty focuses on training. Miami Shootout Anniversary. Kind of like getting a trophy for being on a sports team even if you rode the bench. It has been a long time since I retired, so maybe bullet manufactures have improved their rounds to surpass the original test results. This one shooting affected every subsequent law enforcement shooting., Left: William Matix and Michael Platt killed two FBI agents before they were also shot and killed during one of the FBIs most notorious shootouts. Mike Wood is the son of a 30-year California Highway Patrolman and the author of "Newhall Shooting: A Tactical Analysis," the highly-acclaimed study of the 1970 California Highway Patrol gunfight in Newhall, California. In my opinion, the Miami Dade shooting is almost on par with the equally infamous 1997 North Hollywood Bank Shootout in terms of their memorability. In case law, Microdecisions, Inc. v. Skinner889 So. April 20, 2011. Mireles then advanced to the drivers side door and pointed his revolver through the window and Shot Platt in the chest which bruised his spinal cord and ended the gunfight. Collectively Matix and Platt were armed with: A sketch of the crime scene (Sketch by FBI). 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