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

[TAZ]

As with most things administrative or beurocratic it takes a tragedy to force a paradigm shift. Sadly those men gave their lives to try and improve things for the future generation of LEO. Be it better ammo, better hardware and better tactics they sacrificed a lot for the next batch.

I doubt that we will ever know what truly cause the situation to go as sideways as it did, but I'm 100% certain it isn't just one solitary thing. It's most likely an issue of poor choices, compounded by poor equipment compounded by poor training compounded by an opponent who was unimpressed by the FBI badge. Truly a shit sandwich, with which they did the best they could.

[HCM]

1) ** Internet RUMOR mill only**, but I have heard, the car with the two MP5s stopped off on a bathroom break. One guy taking a dump, the other grabbing coffee for the stakeout. The other agents started rolling out. The two agents out of the car did not have hand held radios, so they did not hear the radio traffic to start rolling. Once in the car and aware of the incident, the started to roll, but it took them a few minutes to find the location on the key map. Those few minutes add up... **May or may not be true, only rumor** sounds plausible though

2) Pre 9/11, you had to have a memo from a supervisor initialed by the District Director of investigations to sign out a long gun. Then that long gun had to be back in the armory at the end of the day. No taking it home. Soooooo, no one signed out shotguns. Post 9/11, we got the go ahead to hand out all the shotguns as full time/take home issue, because they did not good to anyone locked up in the armory...

1) Totally plausible. In fact, I have a magic power - Apparently, I can make a suspect / fugitive leave their house by going to the bathroom ;-)

2) Correct, however, every guy on my team had a take home long gun. Per policy, they were not allowed to leave them in the car overnight, even with the lock box, and apparently too much trouble to take it into and out of the house everyday .......

Or how about SRT guys not allowed to take their long guns home because ..,,, that's not what their commander does in his national guard unit ..... And then calling me at 03:30 for access to the armory ....

[pablo]

I seriously doubt having street cops out there on that day would have made one iota of a difference, might have ended up worse. It's 2016 and we've all seen the recent video of Miami cops swarming a suspect's car, that's not endemic cultural problem that's been learned since 1986. Lessons that should have been learned in Newhall in 1970 were ignored then and it still happens today.

Mattix and Platt weren't going down without a fight and they weren't getting taken alive, and the idea that someone wasn't going to get hurt taking them, at least to me, is ridiculous. Short of setting up a 1920's style police ambush. They were good at least 1 murder, an attempted murder, 5 violent robberies, and shooting two armored truck guards.

Sometimes the best survival method is being willing and equipped to unmercifully kill your opponent.

[LSP552]

Hard to imagine it's been that long.

There are a number of key lessons from this event, and many have been previously mentioned. Two that I haven't see (or overlooked) were if you need glasses to see and fight, they should be strapped on, and don't take your gun out of the holster and put it on the seat in a moving vehicle.

There were things to emulate and things to avoid.

The things to avoid were mostly leadership failures and pre-event mindset. Knowing the suspects violent history and the weapons used, it should have been apparent they would likely fight instead of surrender. Leadership should have set that tone from the beginning, and made sure that the appropriate tools were available when it happened. It's hard to imagine that anyone would bring a pistol to a scheduled rifle fight. IMO, this falls back on not really expecting the fight.

Like many others here, I've led a fair number of takedowns of armed criminals and logistics (including equipment) is part of any operations order format I've used or are aware of.

The entire 10mm experiment happened because leadership couldn't stand up and say "I should have planned that better."

[LSP972]

I think you are kidding yourself. Numerous comments over your time here have shown that you don't like the Feds. It's true they don't do everything really well. Just like everyone else out there. I was a street cop in a much bigger, busier, more violent place than you were. Not counting half a dozen deployments to various sandboxes. I think you lack perspective, and have a bone to pick, for whatever reason.

"Assuming...adhered to the playbook." That says it all.

Read my post above. I left a lot out, but I'm certainly not defending the Bu's actions on that day.

I think not.

But whatever…


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[LSP972]

Legit questions for both you (SLG) and LSP972 :

1) It's my understanding the agents involved in the fight were only a portion of the agents out looking for Platt and Matix that day but were simply the closest and first to arrive when the suspects were spotted. I was told the first two agents to arrive just after the fight were both armed with MP-5's, had better body armor and could have helped even things out if they had been closer. Is this correct ?

2) Two of the agents involved in the fight were local / regional SWAT agents armed with S&W 9mm pistols (459's?). My understanding is as SWAT members, even back then, they had access to M16's/AR-15's and/ or MP-5's but did not bring them due to the administrative hassles associated with getting management clearance to deploy them, getting them checked in and out of the armory etc.

On several occasions where things went aideways unexpectedly I've been the only guy who actually had his long gun with him rather than locked up at home or in the armory so #2 in particular has the ring of truth to me.

1. Gadfly's "rumor mill" post on the two regional FBI SWAT lads and why they didn't get there in time is close- kinda/sorta- to what I was told was the reason. I'll leave it there. BTW, Dove had a 459 as well, shooting 115gr SilverTips. He got two good hits on Platt as Platt was climbing out of the car. Unfortunately, neither penetrated quite far enough. And there was another agent there with a 459, shooting from across the street. He didn't hit jack.

As LSP552 noted, this failure of the 9mm SilverTip is what led to the 10mm fiasco. And that one is strictly on the director at that time; his FTU people tried to tell him it was a REAL bad idea.

2. There was an 870 there; Mireles ran it dry (one-handed, no less, and got a few pellets into Platt; but the car door stopped most of them) and then finished the job with his 2.5" M-19. Balls of steel, that fellow.

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[TGS]

Certainly a lot to learn from the event.

I try to pick out what I can and apply it to my job, but the whole deal isn't really in my agency's wheelhouse. I think we prosecuted 50 people last year....total throughout all of the agency's arrests. We rely heavily upon local/state for many of our domestic missions, as this stuff is clearly something they do and we don't. Either that or the investigation is handed over to another agency that has a bigger purchase than we do.

Everything that I can pick out and apply to my job is either stuff that's already been covered or the simple lesson of call someone who is technically and tactically proficient for the task at hand.

[Lon]

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.

Think I'll re-read my copy of that later tonight..... I remember reading the gun rags talk about this when I was a kid. i still know agencies that would fuck this up if they had to take down Platt and Mattix today. Sad we keep repeating our mistakes and don't learn from the tragic deaths of our brothers.

As a side note and kind of off topic, it has been my experience that most of the sharpest Feds I've been on ops with (tactically and street wise) are those who are like SLG, former street cops who went fed at some point.

[LSP972]

As a side note and kind of off topic, it has been my experience that most of the sharpest Feds I've been on ops with (tactically and street wise) are those who are like SLG, former street cops who went fed at some point.

Absolutely, 100% correct.

They (the Bureau) are getting better at training the yuppie out of the new meat hires; but in my day, the Ivy League agents were awash in a sea of cluelessness.

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[Edwin]

I have an entirely different take than most of you. I lived down the street from where this took place. I was three when this happened and have vivid memories of hearing the whole thing go down and my mother freaking out. For the next 24 years, I would ride my bike to Chapman Park and would always pass along the site. In 2001 we added a memorial sign so anyone who passes by and takes the time to read it will know about it.



https://goo.gl/maps/A9mGmpCz4ko