Four Miami-Dade officers involved in a 2019 police shootout with robbery suspects in Miramar, which left an innocent UPS driver and bystander dead, reportedly turned themselves in after being indicted.
Richard Santiesteban, Rodolfo Mirabal, Jose Mateo and Leslie Lee have all been charged in an incident dated Dec. 5, 2019, the same date of the shooting, according to Broward County's Clerk of Courts website. Their cases are companion cases, meaning they stem from the same incident.
The charges facing the men also correspond to information provided by a source, who said three officers would face one count of manslaughter and the fourth would face two counts of manslaughter.
Santiesteban, Mateo and Lee face one manslaughter charge each. Mirabal faces two, after allegedly causing the deaths of both the UPS driver and the innocent driver of a nearby car.
Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association (PBA) President Steadman Stahl told NBC6 on Saturday that all four officers turned themselves in Friday and have since been released. He also mentioned that he is disappointed with the indictment and noted that the PBA will provide lawyers and support the officers through the legal process.
“It’s going to have a chilling effect,” Stahl said. “The police officers are not the ones who should be held responsible for this.”
Court documents for Santiesteban, Mirabal, Mateo and Lee list the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the organization that files criminal charges against officers, as the charging agency in their cases.
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“The family’s looking to blame somebody and the blame is misguided coming from the family, and certainly misguided coming from the Attorney’s Office for charging these officers for doing what they’re trained to do,” Stahl added.
The documents also refer to a grand jury indictment, which corresponds to the Broward State Attorney's Office statement that the officers’ cases would be a grand jury proceeding.
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The Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association (PBA) confirmed earlier this week that four of the county’s officers had been indicted in the 2019 chase and shooting. The incident began in Coral Gables, when police said armed robbers took a UPS driver hostage and then led officers on a pursuit to Broward.
When the truck stopped in traffic at a light near Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road, the suspects opened fire on officers, and police fired back, officials said.
The UPS driver, Frank Ordonez, and an innocent bystander in his car, Richard Cutshaw, were killed in the crossfire.
The entire incident was caught on camera.
Relatives of Ordonez said the years since his death have felt eternal.
“It’s been a long four years of suffering and waiting and waiting. More than four years, grieving,” Joe Merino, Ordonez’s stepfather, said. “We miss him. We all miss him. We miss him not being around.”
"I just hope that there’s justice. I really do," Ordonez's sister Genevie Merino said. "We all want closure and peace. We haven’t had that."
Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade PBA said in a statement on June 10: "We’re extremely disappointed that after almost five years, these officers are finding themselves indicted for something they had seconds to decide... It sends a chilling effect to officers in Broward County, that their State Attorney’s Office prosecutes one officer for not responding to an active shooter and now indicting officers for responding to active shooters. As the process moves forward, we will monitor it and defend our officers."
