FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has released its report into the killing of four people — including a kidnapped UPS driver and an innocent bystander — in a 2019 police shootout in Miramar.
Four Miami-Dade Police Department officers are facing manslaughter charges in the case, which started on Dec. 5, 2019, when two armed robbers targeted a Coral Gables jewelry store before hijacking a UPS truck and leading police on a 25-mile pursuit that crossed the county line and ended in a hail of bullets in the area of Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road.
According to the FDLE, all of the bullets killing 27-year-old UPS driver Frank Ordonez and 70-year-old bystander Richard Cutshaw were traced back to the Miami-Dade officers’ weapons, specifically, from among the four officers facing manslaughter charges in the case: Leslie Lee, 57, Jose Mateo, 32, Rodolfo Mirabal, 39, and Richard Santiesteban, 33.
Police also killed suspects Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill. Fifteen MDPD officers, along with Miramar and Pembroke Pines police officers and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, were involved, the report states. Officers fired more than 200 rounds, investigators concluded.
FBI lab analysts found that all four officers’ bullets were found in the body of Ordonez, while a bullet from Mirabal’s department-issued Glock 17 pistol was found in Cutshaw’s body, the FDLE report states.
Lee, Mateo and Santiesteban each face one count of manslaughter in Ordonez’s death, while Mirabal faces two counts in the deaths of both men.
The report also found that Lee, during a voluntary statement, first claimed that he “at no time during the day had fired any weapons,” but contacted a union attorney a week after the shooting about being a “possible shooting officer.”
FDLE investigators reviewed multiple video sources, including body-worn camera, surveillance and traffic cameras, cellphone video and local news media footage of the incident. Investigators also interviewed several witnesses.
All of the charged officers have pleaded not guilty in the case and are awaiting trial in Broward County court.
Read the report: