On April 11, 1986, a shootout occurred between field agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and two armed men in what is now Pinecrest, Miami-Dade County, Florida. The two men, former U.S. Army servicemen Michael Lee Platt and William Russell Matix, were suspected of committing a series of robberies and violent crimes, including a murder, in and around the Miami metropolitan area.
Although the FBI agents had partially surrounded the suspects after maneuvering them off a local road, they quickly found that the suspects were using more lethal weapons than theirs. During the ensuing shootout, Platt in particular was able to repeatedly return fire despite sustaining multiple hits.
The suspects shot and killed two special agents—Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove—and injured five other agents by gunfire. The shootout ended when the FBI agents killed both Platt and Matix as they were attempting to flee the scene.
The incident is infamous as one of the most violent episodes in the history of the FBI and is often studied in law enforcement training. The scale of the shootout led to the adoption by the FBI and many local police departments of more effective handguns; they primarily switched from revolvers to semi-automatics.
Perpetrators
Michael Lee Platt (February 3, 1954 – April 11, 1986) and William Russell Matix (June 25, 1951 – April 11, 1986) met in the early 1970s while serving in the United States Army at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Platt enlisted in the Army on June 27, 1972, as an infantryman. While in basic training, Platt applied for Army Airborne Ranger Training and subsequently entered the United States Army Air Assault School at Fort Campbell, upon completion of which he was assigned to the Military Police Unit. It was in this unit that he met and served with Matix. The two men became close friends and stayed in contact over the following decade, even while living in separate states. This is also where Platt met his first wife, Regina Lylen, whom he married in 1975.
Platt was honorably discharged in 1979, after which he moved to Florida with his wife and started a landscaping business called Blade Cutters with his brother, Tim. By December 1984, Platt and his wife had three children.
Matix first served in the United States Marine Corps, working as a cook (MOS 3371) in the officers' mess, and was stationed in Hawaii and Okinawa from April 1970 to March 1971 and April 1971 to March 1972 respectively, achieving the rank of Sergeant. He was honorably discharged on July 7, 1972. More than a year later, on August 10, 1973, Matix enlisted in the Army, serving with the military police under the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell. He served as a Military Police Officer and Squad Leader; a Guard Supervisor for the Post Stockade; and finally, a Patrol Supervisor, before being honorably discharged on August 9, 1976.
Both Platt and Matix's former wives had died under violent circumstances. Matix's wife, Patricia Mary (née Buchanich) Matix, and a female co-worker, Joyce McFadden, both cancer researchers, were stabbed to death on December 30, 1983, at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Their bodies were found in the hospital laboratory; the women had been bound and gagged before the killer(s) stabbed them multiple times in the chest and neck. Matix was a suspect in the murders, but was never charged. He subsequently collected a $350,000 life insurance policy and later filed a $3 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Riverside Methodist Hospital.
After his first wife's death, Matix moved with his infant daughter Melissa to Florida at Platt's urging. Matix briefly worked at Blade Cutters, but he and Platt eventually left to start their own landscaping business called Yankee Clipper Tree Trimming Service. According to the pastor of the Riverside Baptist Church, where Matix regularly attended services, Matix had attempted to date a number of women in the congregation, describing how Matix used the church "the same way some people would use a singles bar." A woman in the congregation said he seemed eager to marry again.
In May 1985, Matix married Christy Lou Horne. Their relationship was troubled and Horne separated from Matix just two months later, after the latter had become enraged upon learning of her pregnancy. Matix and Horne's son was born shortly after Matix's death.
On December 21, 1984, Platt's wife, Regina, was found dead from a single shotgun blast to the mouth. Her death was ruled a suicide. Platt reportedly told investigators that he suspected Matix had carried on an affair with his wife. Several weeks after Regina's death, Platt married again, to his second wife, Brenda Horne. The family subsequently moved to a luxury housing development, close to where the later shootout with the FBI agents took place.
Crime spree
Before embarking on their crime spree, neither Platt nor Matix had a criminal record. At the time of the shootout, Platt's second wife, Brenda, claimed to have had no knowledge of the two men's prior crimes. Almost all of their robberies occurred on or near the South Dixie Highway (U.S. Route 1) in the southern Miami metropolitan area.
The following are the crimes that have been largely attributed to the two men:
- On October 4, 1985, Platt and Matix murdered 25-year-old Emilio Briel while he was target shooting at a rock pit in the Florida Everglades. The pair stole Briel's car, a gold 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and used it to commit several robberies. Briel's remains were found in March 1986 but not identified until May.
- On October 9, 1985, five days after killing Briel, Platt and Matix attempted to rob a Loomis armored van outside of a Steak and Ale restaurant in the 9000 block of Southwest 97th Avenue. They stole a duffel bag containing $2,825 from a courier who was walking back to the armored van, but were unable to break into the van as driver sped away before the robbers could steal the more than $400,000 inside.
- On October 16, 1985, Platt and Matix attempted to rob a Wells Fargo armored van that was servicing a Winn-Dixie supermarket at 7930 Southwest 104th Street. After ordering courier Jose Sanchez to freeze, one of the men wounded him in the leg with a shotgun; the other fired a rifle and possibly a handgun from the getaway vehicle. Two other guards returned fire, but neither Platt nor Matix was wounded. No money was taken in the botched robbery. Sanchez survived the shooting to make a full recovery.
- On October 17, 1985, Platt and Matix attempted to rob a Loomis armored van outside of a Dalts American Grill restaurant at 11641 Southwest 88th Street. The courier—the same one involved in the October 9 robbery—saw the two robbers as he was returning to the armored van, drew his revolver, and opened fire. The robbers did not shoot back and immediately fled the scene.
- On November 8, 1985, two robberies occurred within 90 minutes of each other. The first robbery happened at a Florida National Bank branch at 14801 South Dixie Highway, where Platt and Matix stole a bag containing $10,000 from a bank teller. A police officer briefly tailed them as they left the bank and managed to get the license plate number of the getaway vehicle. The second robbery happened at the Professional Savings Bank at 13100 South Dixie Highway, where the robbers stole $41,469 in three Wells Fargo money bags that had been delivered that morning.
- On January 10, 1986, Platt and Matix shot a Brinks Company courier as he opened the back door of his armored van at a Barnett Bank branch at 13593 South Dixie Highway. The courier was shot once in the back with a shotgun and twice more with a .223-caliber rifle, described by witnesses as an AR-15 or M16-style rifle, as he lay on the ground. Afterward, the robbers escaped with $54,000 in Briel's Chevrolet Monte Carlo. A civilian followed them to the parking lot of a nearby Burger King restaurant, where he saw the two men transferring the money and guns to a white Ford F-150 pickup truck. The courier survived the shooting but was left with more than 100 shotgun pellets in his body.
- On March 12, 1986, Platt and Matix robbed and shot 30-year-old Jose Collazo as he was target shooting at a rock pit in the Florida Everglades, in an almost identical manner to Briel's killing. Collazo was shot not far from where Briel was killed. According to Collazo, who survived the shooting, the two men arrived in a white Ford F-150 pickup truck and held him at gunpoint, taking the keys to Collazo's black 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo before shooting him three times in the back, arm, and head. Collazo played dead as the gunmen drove away in the F-150 and Monte Carlo; he then walked three miles to get help.
- On March 19, 1986, one week after shooting Collazo, Platt and Matix robbed a Barnett Bank branch, the same one they had targeted in the January 10 robbery. They stole $8,338 before fleeing in Collazo's Monte Carlo.
In response to the numerous bank robberies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Miami office formed the C-1 Miami Bank Robbery Squad, explicitly to combat these crimes. They referred to suspects as the "Unknown Gang" and discerned a pattern in their robberies: the men always committed the robberies on Fridays when the armored vans made their drop-offs. The FBI concluded that the robbers would likely commit another robbery on Friday, April 11, 1986.
Events
Stakeout and attempted traffic stop
At 8:45 a.m. on April 11, 1986, a team of undercover FBI agents led by Special Agent Gordon McNeill assembled at a Home Depot to initiate a "rolling stakeout" in search of Collazo's Monte Carlo, acting on a hunch that the robbers would attempt a robbery that morning. Of the fourteen agents who participated in the stakeout, eight would take part in the shootout, deployed as follows in five unmarked cars:
- 44-year-old Supervisory Special Agent Gordon McNeill (20-year veteran)
- 43-year-old Special Agent Richard Manauzzi (15-year veteran)
- 52-year-old Special Agent Benjamin Grogan (25-year veteran), with 30-year-old Special Agent Jerry Dove (4-year veteran)
- 33-year-old Special Agent Edmundo Mireles Jr. (7-year veteran), with 48-year-old Special Agent John Hanlon (23-year veteran)
- 27-year-old Special Agent Gilbert Orrantia (4-year veteran), with 43-year-old Special Agent Ronald Risner (22-year veteran).
Of the agents involved, two had Remington 870 shotguns in their vehicles (McNeill and Mireles), three were armed with Smith & Wesson Model 459 9mm semi-automatic pistols (Dove, Grogan, and Risner), and the rest were armed with Smith & Wesson revolvers; two had .357 Magnums and five had .38 Specials. Two of the agents had backup .38 Special revolvers (Hanlon and Risner), which they both used during the shootout.
At around 9:30 a.m., agents Grogan and Dove were staking out a bank at the Barnett Shopping Center when they spotted the Monte Carlo, driven by Matix, and began to follow it after confirming that it was Collazo's vehicle. Two other unmarked cars, driven by Hanlon and Manauzzi, joined them. The agents attempted to conduct a traffic stop after the vehicles turned onto Southwest 82nd Avenue in the then-unincorporated village of Pinecrest.
Grogan pulled ahead of the Monte Carlo as it drove south, while Hanlon moved up alongside in an attempt to force Matix to pull over. Matix sped up and began slamming his car against Hanlon's. Manauzzi then rammed the Monte Carlo from behind, causing Matix to lose control of the vehicle, which spun around to face the opposite direction of travel. Hanlon, meanwhile, had crashed into the wall of a substation due to the damage his car had sustained from the Monte Carlo.
Now facing north, Matix tried to drive away, but was again rammed by Manauzzi. This collision sent the Monte Carlo nose first into a tree in a small parking area at 12201 Southwest 82nd Avenue. It was pinned between a parked Oldsmobile Cutlass on its passenger side and Manauzzi's car on the driver side.
Prior to ramming the Monte Carlo, Manauzzi had pulled out his service revolver and placed it on the seat in anticipation of a shootout. However, the collision had flung open the vehicle's door, and, reportedly, Manauzzi's gun either went flying out the door or was thrown to the floor. Hanlon also lost his .357 Magnum service revolver when his vehicle crashed, and had to resort to his Smith & Wesson Model 36 backup weapon. In addition, Grogan lost his glasses during this time, and there is speculation that, in the subsequent firefight, his vision may have been impaired enough to limit his aim and accuracy. This claim was disputed by the FBI's medical director, who stated that Grogan's vision was "not that bad".
Shootout
Platt, in the passenger seat of the Monte Carlo, brought up a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and opened fire at Manauzzi's car. Manauzzi was wounded in the head and back by bullet fragments as he stumbled out of his car. He was unable to recover his revolver and took cover behind a nearby wall for the remainder of the gunfight.
McNeill had turned around to catch up with the other agents; he arrived and began firing over the hood of Manauzzi's car.