1986 Miami FBI Shoot Out

Tudtud, Vince Drexsil C.

Student

Mr. Pericles Guiterrez

Instructor
A shootout, also called a firefight or gunfight, is a gun battle between armed groups. A shootout
often, but not necessarily, pits law enforcement against criminal elements; it could also involve
two groups outside of law enforcement, such as rival gangs. A shootout in a war-like context
regularly constituted armed forces or even guerrilla forces would usually be consider as
a battle rather than a shootout. The incident is infamous in FBI history and is well-studied in law
enforcement circles. Despite outnumbering the suspects four to one, the agents found
themselves pinned down by semi-automatic rifle fire and unable to respond effectively. Although
both Matix and Platt were hit multiple times during the shootout, Platt fought on and continued
to wound and kill agents. This incident led to the introduction of more effective handguns in the
FBI and many police departments around the United States.

The 1986 FBI Miami shootout was a gunfight that occurred on April 11, 1986, in a then-
unincorporated region of Miami-Dade County, Florida (incorporated as Pinecrest in 1996)
between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers and murderers. During the firefight, FBI
Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan were killed, while five other agents were
wounded. The two robbery suspects, William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt, were also
killed. Michael Lee Platt and William Russell Matix was the two serial bank robbers and
murderers. Platt was an infantryman and served with the U.S. Army Rangers during the Vietnam
War. He was honorably discharged in 1979 in the other hand Matix once served in the U.S.
Marine Corps from 1969 to 1972, working as a cook in the officers' mess, and was later
honorably discharged after reaching the rank of staff sergeant. In 1973, he enlisted in the U.S.
Army and served in the military police. He was honorably discharged from the army in 1976.

The shootout involved 10 people; two suspects and eight FBI agents. Of the 10, only one, Special
Agent Manauzzi, did not fire any shots (his firearm was thrown from the car in the initial
collision), while only one, Special Agent Risner, was able to emerge from the battle without a
wound. The incident lasted under five minutes yet approximately 145 shots were exchanged.

In my own perspective the FBI Miami shootout in 1986, the FBI was lacking of preparation and
poor marksmanship based on my research the incident lasted under five minutes yet
approximately 145 shots were exchanged. The incident happened where there is a lot of civilians
that might be hit by a stray bullet luckily there was no civilians involved. Marksmanship is very
significant in shootout it is very important specially, we are the future law enforcers in order to
defend the community from heinous criminals we have to practice and enhance our
marksmanship on how to aim properly where you can hit the target without missing because
missing a shoot is very dangerous also known as “stray bullet”. Preparation is very important in
having this kind of incident to respond immediately and to prevent more damage to be done.

Shootout doesn’t only requires marksmanship. Shootout requires preparation, communication,

coordination, endurance and especially marksmanship. Preparation, when you’re prepared
starting well is easy because you have some plans before starting. It helps in understanding
those things you need to do and you have an understanding of several things that is needed for a
particular goal or course of action. Communication in every way it is very important its purpose is
to exchange information and to avoid miscommunication and in our course communication is
one of the things we need to do to avoid misunderstanding that may result to misencounter.
Coordination is important because it provides unity of action of diversified resources, skills,
activities and perceptions through coordination, we reduce such diversity and restore unity of
action to achieve intended goals. Endurance is important as we saw in the video, the FBI agents
endured the pain thou many bullets was missed but they did not give up even though they are
hardly shot, they endure the pain and fight back to achieve their intended goal. Lastly,
Marksmanship is very important law enforcer deals with crimes and criminals. We expect
battling criminals as they say Police is already half dead because anytime we can met death. We
should practice and improve marksmanship to have safety and to have a clean kill.

Therefore, we should prevent an incident like this to happen specially there are a lot of terrorism
now a days it is better to be prepared we should have this kind of lessons and it is better if we
should have firing class wherein, we can practice our marksmanship. We are facing now a world
of high-technology and I hope the in our country we will have a high caliber guns too so if
somethings happen we can protect ourselves not with pistols but with high caliber guns, because
in the movie the FBI had only revolver and shotguns which is really disadvantage facing
opponents with high caliber guns. I also learned that we should never underestimate our enemy.