A Miami-Dade Police officer who was involved in an intense 2019 shootout with carjackers during a rush hour pursuit and subsequently charged for the death of a UPS driver is claiming self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
Richard Diaz, the attorney for Jose Mateo, one of the four Miami-Dade Police officers indicted, argued the actions he took that day to confront the armed robbers, who had taken UPS driver Frank Ordonez hostage.
“Our state recognizes the right of someone to defend themselves,” said Diaz.
The Dec. 5, 2019 shootout, which took place near the congested intersection of Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road, left two suspects and two innocent people dead. It followed a multi-county police pursuit that was triggered by an armed robbery at the Regent Jewelers store in Coral Gables.
Mateo’s attorney using the following example to justify his client’s actions:
“You have a baseball bat, you got a guy coming at you with a knife. He probably can hurt you more than you can with a baseball bat. You wind up and you’re ready. As you wind up, you hit someone behind you and they die. That’s transfer of intent,” said Diaz.
Diaz argued someone attempting to defend himself who unintentionally hurts a bystander should not be charged.
But prosecutors said there’s no legal basis for that.
“The statute simply doesn’t call for that,” prosecutor Charles Morton said.
Prosecutors argued the law only applies for someone defending themself from an attacker and the attacker is the one hurt or killed, not an innocent bystander like Ordonez.
The defense refuted that claim and insisted the manslaughter charge be thrown out by the judge.
“If you’re confronting a threat against you and you respond to it, but somebody else is injured who wasn’t the one causing the threat, where the ‘stand your ground’ law applies in those cases, that’s the legal argument that we’re having,” said Diaz.
“When you talk ‘stand your ground,’ you’re gonna need confrontation between those two people to sell that,” said Morton.
The other three officers — Leslie Lee, Richard Santiesteban and Rodolfo Mirabal — have also been charged with manslaughter.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators said the bullets that hit Ordonez were fired by each of the indicted officers. They have all pleaded not guilty.
The judge will now have to consider if there’s enough of an argument to hold an additional hearing next week to consider if the “stand your ground” law could apply to this case or to continue toward a trial, which would also be expected to occur sometime next week.
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