UPS delivery driver Frank Ordonez was just trying to do his job, supporting himself and the two young daughters waiting for him to come home that Thursday in December 2019.
He never made it.
Two desperate fleeing felons spotted his truck parked on a Coral Gables Street and saw an opportunity to further their escape.
One of them, Ronnie Hill, was bleeding from a gunshot inflicted by the owner of the jewelry store he had just robbed. He was hit as he tried to make it to getaway driver Lamar Alexander, waiting in a conspicuous U-Haul rental van that would soon have its rear window shot out.
So, they took Ordonez hostage, stole his truck, and led police on a two-county chase that ended in stopped traffic on Miramar Parkway.
What happened next led to four current or former Miami-Dade police officers being indicted in June by Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor’s grand jury on manslaughter charges in the deaths of Ordonez and – for one of those officers – Richard Cutshaw, a motorist shot as his car idled in traffic.
NBC6 Investigates has obtained hours of video and audio and other evidence Pryor’s office is relying on to prosecute the officers – evidence that had been shielded from public view for nearly five years, as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FBI and the Broward State Attorney conducted investigations.
Now – through police body camera video and other evidence – the public can see for itself what officers faced in those terrifying seconds when a two-county chase ended in a hail of bullets on westbound Miramar Parkway, just east of Flamingo Road.
The question for a judge or jury, should it come to that: Does it help prove manslaughter or show officers making reasonable split-second decisions to protect themselves, their colleagues, and the public?
In all, FDLE found, 20 officers from four agencies fired up to 221 rounds over what video shows was 25 seconds.
Autopsy records reveal Hill was struck 40 times. After Hill opened fire on police, Alexander died of a gunshot fired straight through his skull by a gun whose muzzle was placed directly on his right temple, the Broward medical examiner determined – an apparent self-inflicted wound.
Ordonez, 27, was struck 12 times, and five projectiles were recovered from his body, the autopsy found. The FDLE report said each of the five projectiles was fired from one of the four guns used by the indicted officers.
One of those officers, the report said, also fired the lone projectile recovered from Cutshaw, 70, the motorist shot once in the back of the head as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car.
To understand how those 90 minutes of terror – from armed robbery to shootout – unfolded, NBC6 Investigates used the previously unreleased evidence to analyze each of the robbers’ desperate acts and the police response to them, beginning shortly after four that afternoon at a jewelry store then on Miracle Mile at LeJeune Road in Coral Gables.
THE MAN IN THE MASK
Something was a bit off about the man in the US Postal Service sweatshirt and hat who, carrying a Priority Mail Express box and padded envelope, rang the bell to get buzzed into Regent Jewelers.
By the time one gets a closer look, he’s already inside and then it’s obvious: he was wearing a full-head latex mask, and, with those packages, he carried a .40 caliber Glock model 22 with a suppressor attached.
And he wasn’t shy about using it.
Just four seconds after entering, he fired into the floor near the feet of the store manager who just allowed him in.
The shot produced a ricochet into a back hallway, striking the forehead of a sales agent, luckily spared major injury. She lay bleeding in that hallway with the store owner while the robber ordered the manager to help fill his laundry bag with jewels and other valuables.
After six and a half minutes inside, the gunman – Hill, a 41-year-old previously convicted burglar and armed robber from Miami – made his escape.
Or at least tried to.
As soon as he exited the back door, the manager and owner jumped to their feet, retrieved their guns from the front of the store and gave chase, firing repeatedly at both the robber and the getaway van.
One round from the owner’s Sig Sauer semi-automatic hit Hill and another round took out the back window of the U-Haul van driven by Alexander. Like Hill, Alexander was 41 and from Miami, and, for his crimes, had served a 10-year prison sentence for armed robbery.
'GO AHEAD. KILL HIM, MAN. KILL HIM.'
With his accomplice bleeding in the passenger seat, and police surely on the lookout for the clearly marked U-Haul rental van with the shot-out window, Alexander was himself on the lookout for another way to make a clean getaway.
Less than 15 minutes after fleeing the robbery, they cruised through a residential neighborhood a mile and a half away from Regent Jewelers and saw the UPS truck, dumped the van, and preyed on Ordonez as he finished his last delivery.
“Thank you. Have a nice day,” Ordonez’s customer called out after he knocked on her door and headed down the walkway toward his truck.
The next words picked up by the home’s security camera come from the robbers after Alexander confronted Ordonez in the delivery truck’s cab and Hill, unsteady and limping at times from his gunshot wound, stood outside the passenger door.
“Get in the back. Get in the back,” one shouted at Ordonez. Then, turning to his armed accomplice, he added: “Go ahead. Kill him, man. Kill him.”
After talking with his abductors for over a minute, Ordonez followed orders and the van drove off at 4:35 p.m.
Police were quickly on their trail, thanks to the same woman who’d just wished her deliveryman a good day. She saw him being kidnapped and called 911.
“Police,” she is heard saying on her security system as she walked nervously on the sidewalk toward the abandoned U-Haul van. “The UPS truck just got robbed. Carjacked.”
Exactly one hour after the truck was hijacked and 15 miles away, the kidnappers, their hostage and Cutshaw, the bystander, would be dead – the end result of Hill shooting at officers and police returning fire in a busy Miramar intersection.
'HE JUST LIT UP MY GREEN-AND-WHITE.'
Warned to be on the lookout for the UPS truck, a Miami-Dade officer was first to spot it headed north and attempted a traffic stop but was thwarted and the chase was on into Broward County with police car speeds topping 100 miles per hour.
Officers were advised by radio a gun was being held to the UPS driver’s head, and that one or both gunmen were firing at pursuing officers.
Video from a police body camera and Chopper 6 shows one of those attempts to kill police on I-75 north, just before Pines Boulevard, at 5:22 p.m.
The truck rode the shoulder through traffic and, as it merged back into travel lanes, an MDPD officer sped up along the driver’s side and heard gunshots hit his car, causing him to jerk his wheel to the left and slow down.
“Shots fired, shots fired,” radioed the officer, who was not one of those charged. “Motherf---!” he cursed to himself before returning to the radio to alert his colleagues: “Hey. He just lit up my green-and-white … My car’s all shot up.”
Two projectiles from Hill’s firearm were recovered from that marked unit, FDLE reported.
Two minutes later, after turning east on Pines Boulevard, the chase entered Century Village, the truck blowing through the lowered gate as two security officers stood by, appearing dumbfounded. At that point, more than 50 police vehicles were in pursuit.
They emerged two minutes later onto Pembroke Road, before turning south past the headquarters of the FBI, whose agents by then were in the hunt and would later do their own investigation of the events and process evidence.
Facing late afternoon traffic on Miramar Parkway, the getaway driver pulled U-turns and finally came to rest westbound before Flamingo Road at 5:35 p.m.
With their 90-minute crime spree by then racking up a full docket of felony charges -- including potentially armed robbery, aggravated battery, kidnapping, carjacking, and attempted murder of law enforcement officers -- Hill and Alexander could reasonably see a life in prison in their futures.
In seconds, Alexander would die of a gunshot fired straight through his skull by a gun whose muzzle was placed directly on his right temple – an apparent self-inflicted wound. Unable to say with “medical certainty” the contact wound was a suicide, the medical examiner called the manner of death undetermined.
But first Hill, with hostage Frank Ordonez in mortal peril by his side in the front of the truck, chose another route.
And so began the felons’ last stand – and Ordonez’s last moments.
SPLIT-SECOND DECISIONS
With the truck surrounded or blocked by police cars and those of civilians, a passel of pedestrians standing on a street corner waiting to cross the road, Hill leaned out the passenger side door, lowered his weapon and fired twice at officers gathered behind the truck.
Witnesses interviewed by FDLE, cellphone video, body cams and helicopter video all confirm what NBC6 Investigates first reported in December 2019: it was Hill who fired the first two shots at officers, triggering the 25-second barrage of up to 221 rounds fired by 20 officers.
Body camera videos from three of the four charged officers obtained by NBC6 Investigates are listed by prosecutors as potential evidence against them as the state seeks to prove manslaughter in what those officers did during those 25 seconds. All the officers have pled not guilty.
Among the four Miami-Dade officers charged with manslaughter, Richard Santiesteban and Rodolfo Mirabal were closest to Hill and in the line of fire as he aimed their way, video shows. Legal and law enforcement experts told NBC6 Investigates in 2019 police would have been legally justified to use deadly force at that moment, before Hill even fired.
But they didn’t.
Their body camera videos show their reactions in split seconds.
Santiesteban, standing on the passenger side of Mirabal’s marked unit, ducked, turned, and retreated just as Hill fired, ending up behind a civilian’s pick-up truck when he started to shoot toward the UPS truck as the pick-up moved aside, giving him a clearer angle. He unleashed up to 44 rounds, the most of any officer present, two of them retrieved from Ordonez’s body, according to FDLE.
Mirabal, still in his unit’s driver’s seat when Hill’s two shots whizzed past his position, opened his door and fired his weapon from that position of partial cover, sending up to 19 rounds in Hill’s direction, one of which was found in Ordonez’s body, FDLE stated.
Another of his shots entered the back of Cutshaw’s head, FDLE concluded, as he idled in traffic six car lengths in front of the truck. That’s why Mirabal is the only officer facing two counts of manslaughter: one each for Ordonez and Cutshaw.
Close review by NBC6 Investigates of Mirabal’s body cam and video from the Broward Sheriff’s helicopter indicates the shot that hit Cutshaw – the only shot to hit him or his car mentioned in the FDLE report – was fired less than two seconds after Mirabal opened fire.
That’s the elapsed time between his first shot and when Cutshaw’s foot comes off the brake of his 2009 Grand Marquis, causing it to slowly and steadily drift until it bumps into a car stopped on Flamingo Road, resting in the spot where he would be found dead inside.
Body cam video from a third officer charged with manslaughter, Jose Mateo, shows him several car lengths behind the others when Hill opens fire, but moving quickly toward the threat, firing up to 18 rounds, one of which was recovered during Ordonez’s autopsy, FDLE reported.
The fourth officer charged, Leslie Lee, told FDLE in a sworn statement given five hours after the shooting he never fired his weapon that day. But a week later, FDLE reported, a union attorney informed its agent Lee had indeed fired – up to six rounds, FDLE later determined, with one round recovered from Ordonez.
If Lee had a body camera on, the video may not have been preserved as it is not listed by the state as potential evidence it intends to use to persuade a judge or jury the officers are guilty of manslaughter -- assuming the case survives pretrial motions or appeals and even makes it to trial.
MANSLAUGHTER OR SELF-DEFENSE?
For an expert opinion on whether the evidence now available to the public supports a manslaughter conviction, NBC6 Investigates shared portions of the video and FDLE findings with attorney Phil Reizenstein, a former prosecutor and longtime prominent criminal defense attorney.
“This video is breathtaking in its violence and what it shows,” he said.
“This is as difficult a case as I could imagine for prosecutors,” he said, citing several legal factors that could stand in the way of conviction, including Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows a judge to decide before trial whether there’s enough evidence of self-defense to throw a case out of court.
And he pointed to another statute that “speaks very strongly towards defending the actions of the police officers.” It says law enforcement is “justified in the use of any force (which) he or she reasonably believes to be necessary” to defend himself or others while making an arrest of fleeing felons.
Reizenstein said a key portion of that law is that the reasonableness of the response is based on the officer’s perception – what he believes to be reasonable when making split-second decisions about whether to use force against, in this case, violent fleeing felons shooting at them. That’s a far cry, he said, from what a prosecutor, judge or jury might perceive as reasonable months or years later in cold hindsight.
“So all of this argues very much against manslaughter,” he said, “because you have police officers in the line of duty risking their life to kill violent people who have weapons and are shooting at them. And they can kill officers. They can kill the public.”
To convict for manslaughter, juries in Florida are told the act that caused death “must have been committed with an utter disregard for the safety of others.” But one cannot be guilty if the killing was “justifiable.”
And if the evidence supports it, juries must be told gunfire that causes “unintended harm to unintended victims is justified if the shot was fired in the proper and prudent exercise of the defense of others.”
When it comes to Ordonez, proving whether all four of the charged officers’ rounds actually caused his death could be a critical hurdle, since he was shot 12 times and only five projectiles belonging to the four defendants were recovered from his body.
One of those projectiles (from which officer the FDLE report does not say) perforated both his lungs and thoracic aorta – injuries likely to cause death, according to the autopsy.
But another recovered projectile was found to enter and remain in his arm, and other projectiles that perforated his chest and torso were never recovered or attributed to the charged officers, according to the autopsy and FDLE report.
Aside from the forensic evidence yet to be fleshed out in depositions and expert testimony, the question of self-defense looms large over the prosecution, Reizenstein said.
So is what those officers did on Miramar Parkway nearly five years ago manslaughter?
“When you look at it through that lens, it’s not manslaughter,” he said.
But, he added, the force has to be reasonable and prudent.
“There’s a whole lot of shooting going on here and that’s probably what’s caught the attention of the Broward State Attorney’s office,” he said. “There comes a point, I think what they’re going to say, when the actions of the police officers went beyond what was necessary to defend themselves.”
In that sense, he said the state could make a case the officers “acted in a reckless, dangerous manner, placing other people’s lives in jeopardy.”
Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor’s office declined comment for this report, referring NBC6 to his statement announcing the indictment in June, where he cited “the enormity of the gunfire in this incident at an extremely busy intersection packed with civilian motorists and pedestrians.”
Not to mention one man just trying to make a living, Frank Ordonez, whose family from that very night has been critical of police.
“No regard for human life,” his stepfather, Joe Merino, said then of police actions. “No regard for safety, for everybody around the situation.”
Ordonez, he said, “was the victim. He was the hostage. They killed him.”
Now, nearly five years later, Merino told us the family’s opinion has not changed. They want justice and, to them, he said, that means seeing the officers in jail.
Their civil lawsuit against police agencies was dismissed because a judge ruled governments were immune from liability when police act as they did in this case.
Lawyers for three of the four charged officers declined to comment.
Mateo’s attorney, Richard Diaz, issued a statement saying, “As a former Miami-Dade police officer myself involved in several shootings in the 1980s, I am proud to represent Officer Jose Mateo, a member of the priority response team who, consistent with his training, ran toward the threat to eliminate it rather than running away from it. We’re looking forward to representing him at trial.”
But if any of the officers seek a stand-your-ground hearing and a judge ultimately finds they acted in self-defense, there would be no trial.
As for the Miami-Dade officers: Lee retired from the force; Santiesteban was terminated this year for unrelated reasons; and Mateo and Mirabal are suspended without pay while fighting the manslaughter charges against them.
If convicted they face up to 30 years in prison, though, the state attorney’s office said, “a first-time offender could face a significantly lesser penalty.”
