30th anniversary, FBI/Miami fight...........

[Chuck Haggard]

Today is the 30th anniversary of one of the most pivotal gunfights in US history, this event changed people's ideas on guns, ammo, tactics, big time.

One of the things coming from this fight was a scientific approach to wound ballistics, a subject that had been fraught with mythology, derp (still is sadly...) and a total lack of science. The ammo we have available nowadays came from the efforts to fix what was wrong with the ammo we had back then, how it was made, and how it was tested.

I think it also started to give cops the idea that a .223/5.56 carbine was a very good thing to have in a close range fight.

[NickA]

Here's a good interview with one of the agents involved, John Hanlon:
http://proarmspodcast.com/065-john-hanlon-remembers/

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

[Wayne Dobbs]

I think it also started to give cops the idea that a .223/5.56 carbine was a very good thing to have in a close range fight.

Chuck,

That has always been my biggest takeaway from the fight and one I still preach and teach today. The carbine was a game changer that day...too bad it was in the other side's hands.

[Chuck Haggard]

I think it also started to give cops the idea that a .223/5.56 carbine was a very good thing to have in a close range fight.

Chuck,

That has always been my biggest takeaway from the fight and one I still preach and teach today. The carbine was a game changer that day...too bad it was in the other side's hands.

It's tragic that in the year 2016 there are still police admin types who haven't gotten the memo on this and deny their officers the ability to have carbines on hand.

[pablo]

And having ammunition that can chew up auto body. It wasn't even ten years later that Carl Drega went on his murdering rampage or the recent Dallas PD HQ shooting where patrol officers had nothing that could reduce the glass in the armored van.

[TCinVA]

Part 2 of the first video...lots of talk about specifics like access in an emergency, reloading, etc:

[DacoRoman]

Amazing thread.

I just watched the video interview above and I am awestruck.

The epic horror of that day, and simply materialized out of a perfectly sunny and languorous day. And the sublime courage, valor, grit, and determination that was needed to fight those magnificent evil bastards.

Moral of the story, if you are expecting that kind of shit to go down, you need the same type of brave men, but armed with long guns, body armor, tourniquets and lots of ammo!

[LSP972]

Don't be too amazed. The FBI learned a hard lesson that day, a lesson that most savvy street cops had been knowing all along.

For instance; the guy in that video, SSA Gordon MacNeil, was the FBI agent-in-charge of this case and was at the scene, and one of the wounded. Not to speak ill of the dead, but instead of calling the local cops (who were primed and ready for these two assholes) once said assholes were spotted, MacNeil insisted that the FBI guys do an Efrem Zimbalist Jr. TV take-down, for the glory of the Bureau, etc. We know how that turned out. And to his dying day, MacNeil insisted that the on-scene agents were not REALLY out-gunned.

Now… before you dismiss me as just another fed-hater (which is not entirely incorrect), consider this; I was a presenter at the second Wound Ballistics Seminar at Quantico in 1994. This seminar was a re-boot of the original 1987 conference, which of course was a direct result of the Miami Massacre. So I have more than a little inside information to this incident.

Bottom line; four Metro-Dade street cops with shotguns, assuming that Platt and Mattix adhered to the felony stop playbook, could have ended this before it began.

Of course, there is a ton of ancillary information about this incident, and the aftermath, that is never discussed publicly. There are a few other members here, also with inside information, who know exactly what I am talking about. I'll refrain from identifying them, as they may want to remain anonymous due to current employment/contacts/whatever. Me, I don't care… although there are some things I won't discuss for various reasons.

What I'm saying here is that the Miami Massacre was an epic failure, on several levels. Some folks like to use it as an example of "heroism". Ah… not exactly.

No shot at you, Chuck, you know that.

.

[SLG]

I hope none of the following is taken as Monday Morning QB'ing.

The Miami shootout was instrumental in my early training, and I have tried to honor the guys there by learning what I could. In that vein, I want to address a few points that were brought up in the video.

Armament: By 1986 standards, the Agents were reasonably well armed, but they were not appropriately armed for the fight they found themselves in. Even then, the advantages of the carbine were well known, they just hadn't made it to big FBI yet. Same with semi-auto pistols. Only SWAT and HRT had them then.

Tactics and related, ammo: This is the big failing of the lessons from that day. The ammo was not the issue. The caliber may have been (pistol instead of rifle), but this huge emphasis on ammo was the FBI's way of deflecting blame. Yes, we mostly have better ammo today because of this, but a lot of fights have been won with ball. What the Agents needed then was not better ammo, but better training. Taking guns out of holsters while driving, putting them under their legs and other places, set them up for failure right from the start. Again, most guys back then didn't know how bad an idea that was, but because of that fight, everyone should now know. Same with ramming the car. The Agents weren't trained or prepared for what would happen when they rammed the subjects car. This led to some of the other problems that they then faced. Another issue was reaching for a 5 shot ankle gun, instead of reloading the semi auto. If you carry a bug, you need to know, and train to employ it, at the proper time, and not as a default for your main gun going dry. This lesson has been relearned in the last 15 years, but with carbines and pistols. Where we used to always transition to the pistol when the long gun went dry (within 25 yards or so), we now look at the totality of the circumstance, and depending on distance, cover, target exposure etc, we may be better off just reloading the long gun.

Use of cover: Cars are not cover. This has been addressed elsewhere, but when a guy is shooting magazines worth of 5.56 at you, your car will not help very much. If you are going to use the car as cover, use it, don't just stand behind it.

Equipment: Today, we have rifle plates and other things that would likely have helped that day. Take advantage of those things and learn how they work, alone and in conjunction with your other equipment. A big one to me is Active hearing protection. Not only to save your hearing for the fight as well as for the rest of your life, but to help not demoralize yourself, as several of the agents note that rifle fire tends to do.

Final thought for today: What won that fight, was mental toughness. I don't think Mireles looked at his right hand and said "At least I still have my strong hand." Instead, he thought, "I'm injured but I still have to win so that I'm not killed." And he did what he needed to do, even with poor equipment and no relevant training. Even with 5.56 going off at him and in his words, demoralizing him. Even with his teammates injured and killed.

Again, these guys were outgunned and under-trained. But they were tough and did not quit, and eventually got enough killing shots in their to end the fight and win. Nothing I'm saying should be looked at as criticism, just as learning for the future so that fewer of us get shot and killed. Most domestic fights are not nearly as difficult as this one was, and few people or organizations would have done any better. Many agents and police officers today are alive because of these lessons. I'm one of them. Ignore them at your own risk.

[iheartglock]

I purchased this book about it - http://goo.gl/b1AQcp - many years ago. Granted, what I read in there is the extent of my knowledge on the subject but I was always amazed by the amount of damage the human body can take and still function.