Florida: Police Execute Two Unarmed People, Shoot Two of Their Own In Unhinged Rampage
May 9th, 2014This is Florida Gold.
Via: CBS:
On December 10, more than two dozen police officers from across Miami Dade County converged on a blue Volvo that had crashed in the backyard of a townhouse on 65th Street just off 27th Avenue.
As the car was wedged helplessly between a light pole and a tree, nearly a minute passed before officers opened up – firing approximately 50 bullets at the car and the two unarmed men inside the vehicle.
The two men inside the car survived that initial volley of gunfire, according to witnesses, who said they could see the men moving inside the Volvo. Everything went quiet for nearly two minutes before the officers opened up a second time – unleashing an unrelenting torrent of bullets that lasted almost 25 seconds. By the time it was over, the two men inside the car were dead.
CBS4 News has learned a total of 23 officers fired a total of at least 377 rounds.
Bullets were sprayed everywhere. They hit the Volvo, other cars in the lot, fence posts and neighboring businesses. They blasted holes in a townhouse where a 12-year-old dove to the ground for cover and a four month old slept in his crib.
“It was like the Wild Wild West, man, crazy,” said Anthony Vandiver, who barely made it through the back door of his home before the gunfire erupted. “Shooting just wild; shooting all over the place. Bullets could have come through the window. Anything could have happened man. They weren’t thinking, they weren’t thinking at all.”
Earlier that night, the driver of the Volvo, Adrian Montesano, robbed a Walgreens at gunpoint, and then later shot Miami Dade Police Officer Saul Rodriguez in a nearby trailer park.
Montesano escaped in the officer’s patrol car eventually dumping it at his grandmother’s house in Hialeah – before fleeing in her blue Volvo
By 5 am every cop in South Florida was looking for that blue Volvo – intent on catching the man who had shot one of their own.
But what police didn’t realize before they started shooting at the Volvo is there was a second man in the car – Corsini Valdes – who had committed no crime.
And in fact, as CBS4 News was the first to report, both men inside the Volvo were unarmed at the time police caught up with them. All of the gunfire came from police.
Montesano and Valdes were killed by the dozens of rounds that tore through their bodies.
But Montesano and Valdes weren’t the only ones struck – two Miami Dade police officers were hit as well – caught in the crossfire. One officer was shot in the arm and the second was hit in the arm and grazed in the head. If the bullet had struck just a half an inch to the side the officer would have been killed.
The sound of the gunfire was deafening – literally deafening. Two Miami police officers sustained ruptured ear drums from the cacophony of shots.
CBS4 News has spent the last five months piecing together the events of that evening and the hunt for the blue Volvo. CBS4 News reviewed radio transmissions, analyzed video taken during the shooting, interviewed officials from the different agencies involved, and reviewed records related to the officers who fired their weapons.
The nature of the shooting suggests the officers lost sight of their own training and that the officers, caught up in the heat of the moment, failed to listen to their radios or coordinate their actions endangering not only their own lives but the lives of the public.
It is worth saying, none of this would have happened if Adrian Montesano had not made the decision to rob the Walgreens and shoot a police officer. None of those officers would have been in that backyard if it weren’t for the actions of Montesano. But that does not absolve the officers of responsibility for their own conduct, as well.
Wow.
I can understand how people get caught up in the moment. Initially, it sounded like a traffic accident turned into a murder by cops. After seeing it was an armed robbery where the suspect shot a cop, you can understand where the police knew the suspect was armed, dangerous, and willing to shoot to get out of it.
The interview in the video at the end really explains it. Too many people were trying to control the scene. The cops were acting independently, which can never go well. The second volley of gunfire was in response to the suspect raising his hands, under direct order from another officer.
For officers that couldn’t hear those instructions (probably because their ears were still ringing), raising his hands would have appeared aggressive.
The police did totally fuck up. I won’t even attempt to justify the way they operated. They were trained, exactly *ONE* person controls the scene. You have to follow their instructions explicitly, or you risk something exactly like this.
And of course, simple firearms safety rules. You have to be sure of the target *and* what’s behind it. By hitting any buildings, other cars, and other things (like other officers), they weren’t doing one of the primary rules of firearms. They can’t use the excuse that it was the scene which dictated the behavior. Those rules are for *exactly* situations like this. They’re really lucky more people weren’t hurt.
in the end, they did kill an innocent person. Just being in the car with a criminal is not a criminal action. I didn’t read up enough on the story to know if the passenger was an associate, kidnapping victim, or just a stranger who asked for a ride.