This arose from the age old 'caliber wars' raging on another thread.

The essentials of the Miami Shootout:

One assailant was a Marine, the other a Ranger.

Eight agents were in the actual shootout

Agents had shotguns, 9mm pistols and revolvers

There was a collision, the agents are shook up because the crooks had a bigger car. One guy lost his .357 when it flew out the door, another his service revolver. One had an S&W model 36 back up gun which he used.

Crook wounds officer though a car door with a mini-14 and another who was running.

One crook shot in the forearm

One crook shot and unconscious out of the fight.

Agent shot in the hand and couldn't reload his revolver.

Crook shot through arm into chest, one of the shots that would be fatal later. He was then shot in the thigh and foot.

Crook now shoots a .357 but is shot in the forearm and drops the gun.

Crook shot again in arm and it penetrates to the shoulder blade, not a serious wound.

Crook fired the mini-14 and paralyzed one agent and wounded another with shrapnel.

Crook continued fighting by using his left hand to operate the gun.

Agent's gun hit, rendering it inoperative. While working on the gun, crook advances aggressively and kills two agents and wounds one.

Crook tries to drive away in agents car, is shot at 5 times with a shotgun, wounding both feet.

Other crook regains consciousness, jumps in car.

Agents fire four rounds but miss.

Confusion reigns and accounts differ, but crook fires three shots from a Dan Wesson.

Agent comes toward the car and fires six shots from a .357. Rounds 4,5 and 6 being fatal to both crooks.

About 145 shots were fired and it lasted about 5 minutes.

Neither crook was hopped up on drugs.


It seems to me that in this particular encounter:

Though there were several shotguns, they were pretty ineffective. One was wounded by shotgun fire on both sides.

The .223 was highly effective. Five out of eight agents were seriously wounded and one hurt by shrapnel.

Most of the agents shots hit the crooks in the extremities.

Platt, one of the crooks was tough as nails and one mean mamma-jamma.


Some conclusions were:

Revolvers are too hard to reload and don't have enough shots.

Only two agents were wearing light ballistic vests and even they were inadequate against the .223.

Everybody knows the FBI changed to 10mm, which didn't work out.

I've drawn some of my own conclusions:

If there is such a thing as bad luck, it seems the agents got it because there were many interferences in them fighting effectively.

I don't think the agents needed bigger handguns, they needed quick access to some rifles.

I'm surprised that the shotguns weren't more effective. Not that they should have decided the fight, but there was very little effect to either side.

I'm NOT faulting marksmanship because of the complexity, cover and circumstances in the fight plus being outgunned, but a few more body shots by the agents would have slowed Platt down some. Very unfortunately, there were better armed agents on the way that didn't arrive in time.

If you are SURE you are getting into an armed encounter, take a car that isn't a tin cans, wear vests and have some heavier weapons.

It takes a lot of guts to be an agent or LEO.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I read that one of the crooks was ex-USAF security forces. ?? Which had been a Ranger? A Marine?
I really don't know.

The Dan Wesson brand has no "and" in it.

Revolvers were disparaged, but it was a revolver, firing .38 lead HP Plus P loads, that ended the battle. Placement counts. Mireles hit his target. I've read accounts saying that he used a S&W M-586, although not firing .357 ammo.

Tactical errors were made. One agent was riding around with his gun on the car seat. Not surprisingly, it flew off the seat when the collision occurred. Another agent lost his glasses and was unable to see well enough to deal with the situation.

One of the sad facts of this battle is that Platt and the other thug turned out as they did. Had they remained in the military and wound up in Iraq or Afghanistan (had those conflicts been underway then), their qualities would have made them heroes. Ironic, and sad that they chose the path that they did.

These were thoroughly bad men, who had robbed and killed in addition to their bank robberies. They needed to be stopped. It's a shame that the cost was so high. But valuable lessons were learned.

BTW, I was guarding banks at a time when another aggressive, very active robber was busy here. He was eventually taken down by FBI and (I think) local police. That worthy attempted suicide when cornered, but survived to go to prison. I hope he stays there for a long time.

There was another bandit of similar achievement. When these guys turn up, they're smart, determined, and bold. It takes determined, brave men and the right tactics to deal with them.

I can tell you that most bank guards have very little training and are largely sitting ducks, often treated poorly by both banks and their employers. They usually just become victims. Alas, I doubt that'll change. I tried to get my employer to offer some training and detailed what I thought would help. I was ignored and treated with some amusement, I suspect. I did make such plans as I could, and was more aware than many and had plans in case a firefight broke out. I'm profoundly glad that I never had to test those plans in reality.

Th shotguns were mostly loaded with buck shot...we now use almost exclusively slug. Agent Mirales was operating his Remington 870 one handed since his other arm was shot up pretty bad...he ended the fight with his revolver.

Ammo in the 9mm was the old Silvertip. Why did the FBI choose that ammo? The gunwriters of the ay said it was good. After that the FBI created the Ballistics Research Facility at Quantico and applied the scientific method to ammo testing.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

An AR15 or AR10 in the Feds cars evens up the fight.
Bet they carry something similar in the cars now ???

Did they know these bad guys were this heavily armed?
You don't go hunting Bear with .22's....


Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

We now carry M-4's or some of our remaining 10mm H&K MP-5/10's, as well as the 870.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

Ammo in the 9mm was the old Silvertip. Why did the FBI choose that ammo? The gunwriters of the ay said it was good. After that the FBI created the Ballistics Research Facility at Quantico and applied the scientific method to ammo testing.[/QUOTE]

I tried Winchesters Silvertips in a 45 ACP to shoot a doe antelope. These bullets expanded well, but penetration was minimal to say the least. I recover 5 out of the 7 rounds I fired at a 125# animal, which was far smaller than the average bad guy. IF the people who have studied the wounds the felons received, would add their knowledge about depth of bullet wounds it might add some light. What I am asking, if each wound would have 50% more penetration, how many would have rendered the felon incapable of continuing the fight?

Shot placement counts but so does the amount of ammo one has. 17 in the mag and 34 on the hip keeps you in the fight longer than 6 in the cylinder and 12 on the hip. Also gives more chances to hit

Next, let's examine the LA bank robbery!

Are the H-k's in either caliber capable of full auto fire? I think I read that the 10mms aren't. ??

I doubt that's a serious matter, given how they're employed, and if full auto, might they be a little hard to control? What are the ballistics of the 10mm round in this role?

Do SWAT or HRT agents still get issued fancied-up Springfield .45's? I'd like to think that some agents don't have to carry Glocks.

If you know you're going into a gun-fight...
Your choice of weapons should be capable.

The regular Agent variety has single and 2 round burst. SWAT and Firearms Instructors are authorized to carry the Full-Auto version. The ammo is Federal 190 grain JHP. In full auto it is readily controllable and fun to shoot.

Yes, SWAT and HRT can use the Springer. Regular Agents can also carry the Glock 21 if they so choose. The Sig P220 is still on the grandfathered list, so many still tote that firearm about.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

One of the old-timers that was an academy instructor told me, "If you know you are going to get into a gunfight tomorrow...call in sick!" He'd been in a few and didn't particularly enjoy the experience.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

This has been well and truly flogged.

This Amazon.com: In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders: Ronny Cox, Bruce Greenwood, Michael Gross, Doug Sheehan, David Soul, Ronald G. Joseph, Teri Copley, Richard Jenkins, Peter McRobbie, Anne Lange, Katie Layman, Deborah May, Becky Ann Baker, Randal Patrick, Ashton Wise, Jaime Tirelli, Geoffrey Deuel, Craig Thomas, Ann Kymberlie, Lisa Rieffel, Jeanne Tanzy Williams, Silvio Luciano, Dorothy Keller, David Orr (III), Cameron Pratto, Daniel Fern, Loren Peele, Dave Corey, Boaz, Grant Foster, B.J. McQueen, Ed Montgomery, Elliott Fried, Jan Carr, Tracy Roberts, Carole Nease, Terri Cobb, Raymond Bouchard, Dick Lowry: Movies & TV@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H0ZWrej5L.@@AMEPARAM@@51H0ZWrej5L

is pretty accurate, tracks well with the official findings.

I picked up an early CAR-15 back in '83 or so, had it along occasionally and felt better with it. Everyone pretty well turned a blind eye to it. I guess "police militarization" was more trouble to spell than it was worth back in those days.

This comes up every now and then, might want to look at this for insight:

FBI-Miami Shootout

A lot of Dallas cops stash AR-15 variants in their car trunks now. That was prompted by a shootout in suburban Richardson that made it pretty clear that a rifle is an asset.

What a pity that LE learns sometimes through grim experience when logic would suggest having rifles before they regretted a lack of them.

For what it's worth, there was nothing wrong with Agent Dove's, god rest him, marksmanship. That Silvertip he fired went through the Biceps, into the chest and perforated an artery, penetrating nearly to the heart itself, cross torso. If he had been shot outside the hospital I've been told he had almost zero chance of survival. You had a very determined set of thugs, well armed and a number of very brave agents who did their level best to arrest them, no matter the cost. I'm sure at that moment in history they felt that they had plenty of men and more than enough weapons. I think all of us have felt the same at one time or another.

Actually, he could have been shot on the operating table and not survived. SA Dove's shot was 100% lethal, but it was not effective.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

Wait, I thought we were supposed to be upset about our domestic agencies being "militarized" but you're saying that they are in fact under equipped to deal with real threats in the civilian world?
I suppose context is critical, that is to say if you are after armed and dangerous bank robbers that calls for a different approach in both armament and tactics than a routine traffic stop. Or at the very least that some objective threat assessment is an important factor in deciding the appropriate response.

THIS^ This Is the biggest thing to take away from that incident. We can argue training and bullets and revolvers vs mag fed semi autos. ..bla bla bla. .bla bla. The one thing we can never ever calculate is the human factor.

Here's one to ponder on. Did you know there was a Japanese man who survived BOTH atomic bombs!!??!!? He was in both cities when the bombs were dropped. Not only did he not get die, he lived into his 80s in relatively good health

And there are those guys whom I've mentioned in bear threads. One killed an African lion and the other a Kodiak bear with their knives. Some folks just manage to beat the odds. I'm here myself purely by the grace of God after a couple of hazardous experiences. I'm sure that others are. My son is danged lucky to have survived several close combat events in Iraq. In one case, the man firing right next to him was killed.

But as lucky as I've been, I'm glad that I've never had to shoot it out with somebody like Platt or Matix. That's just plain hazardous to your health.

Hi:
My last Agency issue service pistol was a Sig-Sauer P-229 .40 with issue ammo Speers' 180gr JHP. Issue shotgun wasa Mossberg Model 590-1 with ghost ring sights, issue ammo was #4 Buckshot or Rifled Slugs. We also had Colt M-16 .223 Rifles (select fire), Springfield M-14 7.62X51 Rifles, H&K MP-5 .40caliber SMGs, and Savage .308 Bolt Action Rifles with scopes. In reserve were Springfield Model 1903s and Garand M1 Rifles. Our Chief was former Army Special Forces. THEN we changed Chiefs. The new Chief was retired from Howard County, Maryland County Police as a Lieutenant. The M14s, M1903s, and M1s were given away to another Agency. The M-16s were converted to semi-auto and then put away in storage along with the MP-5 SMGs. His reasoning was that He did not feel comfortable with our fire power on the streets. I kept my issue shotgun loaded and sighted in with Rifled Slugs and kept extra Sig-Sauer Magazines in my patrol vehicle.

He must subscribe to the People's Republic of Maryland government policies. The honest people (and police officers) can not be trusted with weapons. Criminals are OK to have what ever they can get!

If too much firepower is a problem, why not go back to they way England was -- The Bobbie's only carried a whistle.

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Bill

One factor I've never seen mentioned about the 1987 FBI incident: boredom.

The team searching for Platt & Mattix had been swanning around Miami for about 6 weeks before they finally stumbled upon them. I expect that whatever preparation and alertness they had on day 1 had pretty much dissapated by the time they actually met the robbers.

[ His reasoning was that He did not feel comfortable with our fire power on the streets. QUOTE]

I don't understand that reasoning at all...

What was he afraid of happening, the Police Department was going to overthrow the city government?

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"Life is short, hunt hard"

The FBI agents were on a stakeout but, perhaps, didn't really expect to find their targets. Their shotguns were in their trunks.

It is my understanding that of the two perps, Platt did all the shooting and Mattix never fired a shot.

Platt was wounded early in the gun battle, yet, inflicted all the damage he did after suffering what should have been a fatal wound.

The FBI is a bureaucracy. As such, they have written policies for everything, including the type of arms to be carried. Despite what was known about Platt and Mattix, there were no rifles or carbines available to them that day.

Incidentally, Platt and Mattix would also visit remote places where they would find people target shooting. They would be-friend these people, then ambush and kill them, taking their guns are vehicles.

One last thought: Shortly after the 1986 shootout, I was attending classes at the S&W Academy when one of their excellent instructors, Bill Borroughs, summed up the gun battle in but three words:
They (the FBI) were outfought. In effect, Platt and Mattix nearly won on mindset alone.

In re-reading accounts of such shootings and confrontations, it makes most of our collective discussions about caliber and sidearm moot. An armed, violent, and determined aggressor is going to be a very formidable adversary irrespective of what we CCW, especially if he has the element of surprise on his side and the stress factor is ratcheted up to maximum level.

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I'm with the banned ...

I live in Miami & am familiar with the shootout.I had lunch after all the what if's....why's & everyones "views"..with a police officer who went over everything "afterwards"he had 20 yrs.as a Leo & 20 yrs.SF(retired 20th group).He said Jim....the agents "KNEW"these were "bad & trained"...we did too.The agents ...should have called us for backup...when they saw these guys!! They chose "not'too...he said "they" were FBI....& thought they were enough.We all knew these guys were well armed & good....as stated FBI had their good stuff in the trunk.He said these guys trained together ,knew what to do....and "moved"!He just shook his head & said they should have called for backup!My friend is dead now agent orange got him.I remember some other comments but can't use them on this forum or I would be banned for life!
Jim

Lord only knows what a man will do under these circumstances.
Blessings

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TEXAS, by GOD

Thanks for posting this. Your post seems to examine the shootout without an agenda, something I rarely see when this subject is discussed. It seems like everyone is an expert from the living room of their homes and has the notion that they would have done a better job or have a better idea. I'm not against examining this or discussing it so that we may learn from it but only for that purpose. I see it used far too often to lambast the FBI or to promote ones favorite caliber.
Having said that, I am not a fanboy of the FBI. To me, cops are cops no matter what badge they carry. On that day, those FBI agents went up against a couple of bad fellas. They didn't run, they didn't hide, they took them on head on. Were some tactics bad? Maybe. Should they have chosen different weapons? Maybe. Do they wish some things were done differently? Probably. But they did the job they were paid to do. Unfortunately at a very high cost. Policemen run TO the sound of gunfire, not away from it. And that's what those FBI agents did. And for that we should always remember them for it and thank them.
I'm sorry for the rant. I just think that sometimes the heroics of the agents that day get lost in some folks agendas. Not necessarily just here, but on a lot of other forums as well.
But just to show you how things have come full circle, heres and interesting tidbit. I've worked many " task forces " with federal agents, especially the FBI. One of them was in response to a couple of serial bank robbers that were hitting us here in Chicago hard and heavy. These were some bad dudes that were doing the "takedown " type robberies. All the FBI agents on the task force were armed with some type of long gun in addition to their pistols while the CPD Officers were only armed with our trusty six shot revolvers. Some things go full circle I guess.

Did this case, or any similar one, change the policy of keeping weaponry in the LEO vehicle's trunk? It would seem that no matter how much firepower LE has at its disposal, inaccessibility in an emergency scenario renders such weaponry useless.

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I'm with the banned ...

I'll bet they do carry rifles, if they're smart. They don't have to pull them out first thing but have them if they need them.

They were not expecting any such kind of resistance. They had been saying crooks in general were better armed, but this got a LOT of attention.

The police in the LA Shootout thought they had a 'routine' bank robbery' and instead met up with two guys in nearly full armor and heavy weapons who WANTED to wreak havoc on police. They were drugged up with, surprisingly, Phenobarbital, not hopped up in a rage but calm and methodical.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I think that police philosophy in the older days was to use a minimum of force needed to stop a situation and not escalate the problem, but these events proved that times were changing. Look how many instances there are of police shooting first and asking questions later. It's a result of the same thing. Killing police is a primary motivator or in some cases even more so than robbing and stealing. The thing that disappoints me is that this tends to make the police look like trigger happy barbarians, at least in a large portion of the public eye.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

The six agents that were involved in the operation but not in the shootout itself had a H&K submachine guns and M16s.

Outfought? Yeah, if Platt had been a good guy in a movie we would have cheered him like Rambo. A real one man army.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I saw that... Gross and Soul played totally out-of-character parts in that movie... absolutely chilling. If the real bad-guy dudes were near as committed to mayhem as those two actin' in the movie... the Feds were confronted with some real, scary hard-ankles.

After this incident I was attending a class of "Officer Safety". One day the instructor asked knowing the information available to the FBI Agents before the shooting incident, how would we have handled it ?When Jimmy's turn came, I stated that, I in an unmarked car would have pulled up next to the suspects' vehicle and shotgunned both suspects though the car's window. W E L L, this did not find favor with the instructor. (I "THINK" during the rest of the class, He kept looking at me, kind of weird ?)

Adequately arming law enforcement officers doesn't fall within my definition of "militarization of the police". It's simply acknowledgement of what LEO's may be up against at any time.

That doesn't mean I'd favor truck-mounted M-2 .50's or RPGs, but a sufficiently effective handgun, a rifle and a shotgun certainly should be readily available.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Both in the Miami and LA shootouts the bad guys didn't have head protection. Shots to the head would likely have ended the whole thing. Head shots would be much more feasible with rifles. It does seem that the Ithaca model 37 long shotguns with the buckshot would have been capable of making a head shot. However, I don't know what the choke on the bore was. If it were open bore (very likely for police work) it may not have been as effective at the ranges they were working.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

The infamous 1986 Miami shootout will always be a topic for discussion, not so much to criticize the FBI, whose men displayed exceptional bravery that day, but so that we may learn from whatever mistakes were made and, hopefully, not repeat them.

While the shootout, in my opinion, represents a failure of tactics, to include firearms choice and location, another even more tragic shootout may be studied because it pointed out failures in training: The 1970 Newhall (CA) incident leaving four CHPs officers dead. This shooting is slowly fading from memory as it happened 45 years ago when most current LEOs were not yet born.

Here are two easy questions regarding Newhall: Why were empty shell casings found in the pocket of one of the deceased officers?
Why did one wounded officer who had partially reloaded his revolver, continue trying to finish loading instead of closing the cylinder and engaging the approaching gunman?

This may sound like thread drift but in reality, it further underscores the need to dissect both good and bad shootings in an effort to understand what happened with a view to reducing or eliminating LEO casualties.

Emotions can sometimes creep into these discussions at the expense of objectivity. For most of us, whether we're CCWs or retired LEOs, we will never have to face the situations faced by the FBI in Miami or the CHPs at Newhall.

I believe jimmyj, in his last entry, got it right.

In addition to Dr. Anderson's writings which I posted the link to there's a youtube video produced by the FBI that includes SA Mireles talking about his actions in addition to those of the others. Worth a watch for sure.

Platt and Mattix met while both were in the Army, Matix had previously served in the Marine Corps. Matix became an MP, Platt was a Ranger, served in Viet Nam, both honorably discharged. Neither had a criminal history prior to their Florida crime spree though there were suspicious circumstances deaths of prior wives for each in which they were investigated. A couple of sick, twisted hardened criminals.

As far as Newhall, there was an article on policeone.com in May of 2012 debunking the myth that Officer Pence dumped his empty shells in his pants pocket.

If agencies fight Mexican drug gangs they had surely better be 'militarized'. 'Militarized' is just a word. If the police use their military-type weapons offensively except to the extent to capture criminals, that's 'militarization'. If they use the weapons only to do a better job, that's 'well prepared".

PS: For a beaten up subject we sure have garnered some good discussion here.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I think it is going to get tougher for LE from here on out. As a bomb tech, I worry about more bombings...especially the suicide variety.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

Truth right here!

Rifles should have been in every police vehicle since they made the transition from horses. The little M-1 carbine is not a bad LE weapon and we made over seven million of them, so they could have been issued to every patrol car in America. But instead we give them away to foreign countries or have them destroyed.

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face"
Mike Tyson

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NULLI SECUNDUS

Not at my agency,...... we had a dopey, liberal Chief that put our shotguns in the trunk and painted our radio cars a more " earthy " tone cause some shrink said it wouldn't " provoke and offend ", folks as our old marked units did. It took two of our men in a raging gunfight with three armed robbers, one of which was using an Uzi, yep, real, who nearly outgunned and killed these men. We FINALLY got our shotguns back up front because you see, they couldn't access theirs under that murderous fire.

The folks at the top of the food chain, and the accountants/property custodians, lose touch with the realities of the field.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

I know Texas Rangers understood the usefulness of rifles a long time ago. They were quite fond of the 1895 winchesters. High powered rifles

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War Eagle! '10 BCS & '13 SEC

As of Police Firearms Instructor since 1968 and State Certified my observations were:

(1) I was surprised more LEO/FBI didn't wind up DRT (Dead Right There)

(2) The bad guys were better armed and knew it and were aggressive

(3) The good guys weren't and went into a defense posture

(4) Most yearly LEO/FBI qualifications at the range doesn't mean you are prepared for a gunfight where the target is shooting back

(5) Of the 100% who qualify, 20% LEO/FBI are truly qualified and the other 95% think they are.

2 or 3 knowledgable guys with rifles can keep hand gun carriers far enough away that they really don't matter.

Bob


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I've studied the infamous 'Miami-Shootout' off and on for decades...sometimes officially and sometimes because it makes interesting although tragic reading.

It is what it was...quick and ugly.

Really the only solid fact I gained is that a Mini-14 could be a serious asset...that and shoot for the head...