MIAMI _ The police car chase and gunbattle that killed two armed robbers, a UPS driver and a bystander was a chaotic affair that stretched across two counties and involved a slew of South Florida cops.
The ensuing investigation _ at least for the public clamoring to know how a police chase broadcast on live television ended in two innocent people shot to death on a busy Miramar street _ has been equally confusing.
The FBI says it's the lead investigating agency, even though the two robbers are dead and can't be prosecuted any longer under federal law. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the police shooting, even though the feds processed the crime scene and took control of much of the evidence, including the guns used by the robbers.
And state prosecutors in Broward County, who presumably would have to investigate whether the police's use of deadly force was legally justified, won't say if they are going to take the case. Instead, a spokeswoman directed a reporter to other law enforcement agencies, including counterparts in Miami-Dade.
"At this stage in the investigation, all inquiries should go to FDLE, FBI and Miami-Dade SAO," Broward State Attorney's Office Paula McMahon said.
Ballistics tests will ultimately show whether the hail of police bullets, or those from the robbers, killed UPS driver Frank Ordonez and motorist Rick Cutshaw. The FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Va., will process the evidence.
"Both FDLE and FBI labs are coordinating forensic efforts," according to Jessica Cary, an FDLE spokeswoman, who added that state agents "worked directly with the FBI crime scene team."
State prosecutions in deadly shootings are rare because Florida law gives officers wide leeway to open fire _ including at "fleeing" felons who could, in theory, harm a member of the public if not stopped.
The conclusion of a state probe, though likely months away, will also allow the public to see the evidence and judge whether officers acted reasonably in chasing the UPS truck and engaging in a firefight with the armed robbers in the middle of a crowded street. The shootout, aired on live television, drew instant criticism from relatives of Ordonez and community leaders.
The deaths of Ordonez and Cutshaw, killed by an errant bullet, also once again cast intense scrutiny on police pursuits. Investigators will pore over firearms ballistics evidence, statements from dozens of witnesses and every frame of dramatic video footage that captured the carnage.
The incident started on Thursday afternoon when armed robbers Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Hill, both 41, robbed the Regent Jewelers store on Coral Gables' Miracle Mile. One stayed in a rented U-Haul, the other went inside, posing as a postal employee to get buzzed into the high-end store.
Inside the store, one of the robbers fired his weapon into the ground _ the bullet ricocheted, hitting an employee in the forehead. She lived. As the robber ran out into the waiting U-Haul, the store manager and employee ran out, firing their own guns at the truck and blowing out the windows.
A few miles away, authorities say, Alexander and Hill ditched their vehicle and hijacked Ordonez's UPS delivery truck. Police officers later caught up with the truck as it drove north on the Turnpike, Interstate 75 and onto the streets of Southwest Broward County. As the UPS truck hit standstill traffic, officers surrounded the vehicle on a traffic-choked Miramar Parkway _ leading to the wild shootout.
Alexander and Hill, who are believed to have fired the first shots, died in the gunbattle. So did Ordonez and Cutshaw, a union organizer who was trying to drive away from the chaos when he was felled by an errant bullet that went through his back windshield.
In all, 19 officers fired their weapons, 13 of them from Miami-Dade, the rest from Pembroke Pines, Miramar and the Florida Highway Patrol.
In recent years, as scrutiny on police tactics has increased nationally, many South Florida police departments have contracted with FDLE to investigate officer-involved shootings as a way of ensuring a more independent investigation. FDLE investigates Miami-Dade, Miramar and Pembroke Pines police shootings.
But it was George Piro, the special agent in charge of Miami's FBI field office, who took center stage at the news conference near the scene hours after the shooting. Behind the scenes, the FBI's asserting its jurisdiction puzzled local and state cops.
From the get-go, rumors swirled among multiple law enforcement agencies that an FBI task force took over the case because a violent-crimes task force had been actively tracking Alexander and Hill before they robbed the jewelry store. (At least one man wearing an FBI jacket is visible on footage of the shooting, although no agents are believed to have opened fire).
Journalist Jim Defede, a reporter for Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS4, even tweeted: "Sources tell me the FBI had been looking for the two men prior to the Gables jewelry store heist."
But FBI spokesman Mike Leverock emphatically denied that the FBI agents were investigating the two suspects before the robbery or even knew of them.
Instead, he said, the FBI took over the case because the store heist falls under the Hobbs Act, a federal law that allows for the prosecutions of robberies that affect interstate commerce. The robbers also carjacked the UPS truck, another factor in the FBI's takeover of the case.
Agents, after the fact, wanted to know whether Alexander and Hill were involved in any other previous heists that might fall under federal jurisdiction, he said.
Gerard "Jerry" Forrester, a retired FBI agent who spent most of his career in South Florida, said he believed the FBI's investigation should be "secondary" to the state's.
"It's hard for me to believe that the FBI would shut out FDLE when the FBI knows that their investigation is secondary," Forrester said. "There should be as much collaboration as possible so the victims' families, the public and law enforcement can understand why this happened."
Alfred LaManna, another retired FBI agent who investigated organized crime for most of his career, said he was puzzled why the FBI was even involved in the robbery-shooting case. "In my opinion, it should be a local case," LaManna said.
LaManna said the public's overriding interest is whose bullets felled the innocent citizens.
"I would be interested to know if any of the police officers killed the UPS hostage and the innocent bystander in the car or whether the two robbers killed them," LaManna said.
Tension between federal and state law enforcement agencies is also not unusual. In one recent South Florida shooting that involved federal agents, the FBI appeared resistant to state investigators.
In September 2018, four FBI agents were among 18 law enforcement officers who opened fire on Alexander Carballido, an ex-con wanted for an armed robbery who traded gunfire with cops while leading them on a car chase. He died in the shooting.
Then-FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Lasky, according to an FDLE report, refused to allow state investigators to test his agents' hands for gunpowder residue, collect their weapons or even count how many of their bullets had been expended.
Federal agents also did not give sworn statements. The FBI itself collected statements from agents, but refused to give FDLE copies of the reports. Instead, a state investigator was only allowed to review the reports and take notes, and he was instructed he could not identify the agents by name in his notes, the report said.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office eventually cleared all of the officers who fired, including FBI agents Brandon Whitis, Jason Burke, Nicholas Jones and Adam Felde, according to a final memo on the case released in August.
Ultimately, FDLE will author and release an investigative report chronicling the evidence in the UPS case.
State prosecutors in Florida review every police shooting to determine whether officers broke the law in using deadly force. They do not decide on whether the shootings, or chases, broke police department policies.
In Broward County, prosecutors generally take police shooting cases to a grand jury, hearings that take place in secret. In Miami-Dade, prosecutors author exhaustive reports explaining their legal reasoning for declining charges.
A spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office declined to comment, saying only that "FDLE is the lead agency investigating the officer-involved shooting in Miramar."
Cary, the FDLE spokeswoman, insisted that the two agencies will work hand in hand.
"Although the FBI's focus is different than ours, the evidence will be similar," she said. "Therefore, we are working in conjunction with the FBI."
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