UPS Hijack/Shootout in Fla-- Why the Feebies?

[Stephanie B]

By now, I imagine everyone's heard of the shootout in south Florida involving a blown jewelry store heist, the hijacking of a UPS delivery truck, and thw subsequent shootout.

My question is why is the FBI involved in this? In popular literature, the FBI is often portrayed as coming in on cases where there is a high degree of public interest, while leaving the less-publicized crimes to the local cops to somehow muddle through.

Are they claiming jurisdiction because the robbers jacked the UPS truck, or because the packages in the truck were involved in interstate commerce?

Does the FBI have a legit interest, or is this a case of them bigfooting a local matter?

[JRB]

I, too, have always wondered how that works. It does seem that the FBI at least takes a look at things once there's 2+ fatalities involved.

[Casual Friday]

It might have something to do with the UPS driver and another bystander being killed, possibly by LE gunfire.

[0ddl0t]

5 separate agencies had officers who opened fire - who else could investigate?

[blues]

5 separate agencies had officers who opened fire - who else could investigate?

I don't know who was on scene, (I haven't read up on this incident), and there are a number of reasons why the FBI might get involved. Otherwise FDLE unless they had a conflict of interest.

[Le Français]

The federal Hobbs Act prohibits robberies affecting interstate commerce, and the FBI is usually tasked with enforcing it (when it is enforced at all).

A great many robberies which do affect interstate commerce (especially when the meaning of that phrase is stretched as far as it has been by Congress and the courts) are never investigated by the feds of any stripe.

[Lost River]

Were the FBI involved in the actual chase/shooting of just the post-shooting investigation?


No clue on this case, but used to work with our local FBI office guys semi frequently.

My experience:

The suspects may have been known individuals, and have been being tracked as part of an inter-agency task force, with the FBI, or more likely,


Often during one of these events everyone wants to get a piece of the action and even people/agencies who should not respond, do, with every agency within miles showing up.

You then need someone who is neutral, and not involved to conduct an independent investigation.

[TGS]

One of the FBIs core missions is to assist local LE however needed upon request.

One of the things the FBI can bring beyond what almost any local/state agency in America can, is resources. It's very possible they were asked to assist just for the crime scene analysis and witness interviews alone...….which an event of this size would overwhelm 99% of agencies in America.

There's any number of plausible scenarios.

[lwt16]

They might just be the most suited to handle it.

I once was tasked with a traffic homicide on US soil simply because I had been to training and the resident .Gov agents had not. I was on scene right after it happened and it was decided by the upper echelon that we would assist and I handled it at the direction of my chain of command.

It sped things up immensely.

The only aggravation was having to go to Birmingham Fed courthouse to handle all the prelims and GJ parts.

Regards.

[Lost River]

I got into a shooting a number years of back. That is not the point of interest though. The thing started as a high speed chase about 40 miles away involving another agency. I was having breakfast with another team member when we heard it. While listening to it develop, there ended up being so many cars, people involved, I chose not to involve myself with the actual pursuit.

Having been in one or two since I started, I chose to block some traffic and stay out of it, as I figured;

A. Someone would have to investigate when what usually happens, happens, which is the bad guy wrecks, or one of the units uses his vehicle to stop him.
or
B. A typical felony stop happens, or foot chase, which either way, someone has to do a review.

I just figured I would let the new guys have at it, and I would do be there to aid in the post incident investigation.

Totally did not work out that way. We had State, County and Federal agencies, some from more than 50 miles away showing up.

I ended up dealing with the bad guy as the chase did not go as planned, turned fatal, he started shooting people, and he took a hostage.

Point is though, we had one County S.O "Sniper Team" self deploy that had a county in between ours and theirs. Off duty, vacationing cops from places we had never heard of involved, etc.

More people than you could possibly ever imagine. When I came out of the building that the standoff happened in after ending it, there were literally more than 40 cop cars, multiple SWAT Teams, etc.

For one dude.

It would be nice if agencies would not self deploy, and guys would do their jobs, but it rarely works out that way, especially the first 3-4 years on the job. After X amount of years, you get it, but at first, it is a hard thing to teach young hard chargers. It is like trying to get a dog not to chase a rabbit.


Personally having our local FBI office do an independent review would be a good thing, and if I was involved in a shooting today, I would gladly welcome them.

It is less likely to be influenced by the "Good ol' Boy" stuff that happens at our local SO, as well as many of the surrounding ones.