Firefight | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

october 8th 1985 marked the beginning of a string of brutal robberies that rocked south florida two masked men used military weapons in a violent spree that threatened innocents but no one knew who they were or where they would strike next before the fbi could stop them lives would be lost and law enforcement would be changed [Music] forever [Applause] [Music] [Music] in miami a gang of robbers targeted banks and armored cars they carried assault weapons and weren't afraid to use them they struck during the day and sometimes twice a day for a while they seemed unstoppable i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office we knew that to stop these criminals would require stealth ingenuity and perhaps a little luck no one expected to become one of the bloodiest chapters in fbi history miami florida 1985 two fbi agents had seemed a city under siege each week there were three to five bank robberies kidnappings major drug deals and shootings were everyday occurrences but just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse a new breed of outlaws hit the streets and turned the miami crime wave into a war [Music] on october 8th an armored car courier made a scheduled pickup at a stake and ale restaurant the driver waited for his partner to return unaware the two heavily armed men were also waiting nearby as the guard approached the rear of the truck the gunman advanced with military-style precision [Music] the subjects retreated to a getaway car and attempted to camouflage their escape with a military-issue smoke grenade [Music] the metro dade county police and the fbi responded to the scene robberies of armored cars and banks fall under fbi jurisdiction the supervisor of the miami fbi's violent crimes unit was special agent gordon mcneill there were basically no clues as far as who these individuals were we had absolutely no idea uh no way to go no one had seen them without the the black hoods over their faces they work gloves on both hands one piece of information witnesses did provide was the license number of the getaway car agents tracked the number and learned the car had been stolen a month before but the lead was a dead end [Music] the robbers had escaped with only 2 800 but their use of military weapons and commando tactics convinced agent mcneal they would probably strike somewhere in miami again but where and when [Applause] the answer came just eight days later at a busy supermarket on south dixie highway another armored car arrived to make a scheduled pickup a courier returned to the truck with several money bags filled with cash and receipts he never saw the car that came around the corner [Music] free the robbers escaped empty-handed metro date police and the fbi quickly responded to the alarm these men were clearly not afraid to use deadly force the courier would later die from his injury [Music] while he was taken to the hospital agents interviewed his partner as he described the gunman it quickly became obvious they were probably the same men responsible for the previous robbery at the stake and ale restaurant there was no money taken in that particular robbery but there were a number of shots fired so the annie was still going up here as far as i was concerned because of you know the continued use of violence you know by these two individuals ballistics evidence would further confirm the connection between the two robberies investigators found double odd buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun 45-caliber bullet casings and 223 shell casings the 223s seemed most significant and the identification division of the firearms unit of the fbi laboratory compared those two shell casings and said they were fired from the same weapon so we definitely had a link now between the winn-dixie attempt and the stake in l robert two violent robberies were linked to the same masked gunman but there were no leads to their identities because they had not scored any cash at the winn-dixie robbery and so little at the stake in ale investigators were certain they would soon strike again two weeks later on friday november 8th a third robbery occurred this time a bank job at the florida national bank as a teller and a guard walked from the main building to the drive-through two mass gunmen emerged from a car at gunpoint they ordered the teller to open the door to the drive-through she tried to comply but there was a problem with the key stalled in broad daylight at a busy intersection the gunman aborted the robbery and fled with only the ten thousand dollars the guard had been carrying within minutes local authorities in the fbi violent crimes unit was handed to the scene of a crime just a few blocks away from the two previous robberies this pattern was starting to develop that all these crimes were happening in the same general area along u.s highway number one fbi interviews with the bank employees confirmed that the robbers were the same pair who'd hit the armored cars maybe they figured a drive-through bank would be less heavily fortified than armored cars easier sources of cash there was no higher priority in this case we had to find these guys and we had to get them off the street before they killed more innocent people but just an hour and a half later they hit the professional savings bank only 18 blocks away get your hands up get your hands up going over there get out of here now get out of here get down get down come on come on come over here the robbers quickly took control of the lobby at gunpoint customers and employees quickly followed their orders with their masks and high-powered weapons no one doubted they meant business [Music] this time they scored big damn they raced off with over 41 000 delivered earlier that day by wells fargo they escaped in yet another getaway car a chevy monte carlo witnesses had little to tell agents the robbers had entered quickly and forced everyone down on the floor where they couldn't see what was going on but since the men had actually been inside the bank this time perhaps the security cameras had captured them on tape agents were soon disappointed to learn that the cameras had somehow malfunctioned and nothing had been recorded it was the fourth robbery in six weeks the heavily armed robbers were looting banks and armored cars in broad daylight the witnesses in these cases indicated that they felt that these people looked like true professionals the way they walked the way they talked the way they carried the weapons and i truly believed up until when we finally found out who they were that we could very easily have been dealing with police officers here or very recent ex-military [Music] with such violent criminals on the loose agents honed their own skills on the firing range they worked the case relentlessly exchanging whatever slim leads they had to find out but nothing panned out two months went by without another robbery and still there were no leads on friday january 10 1986 william roberts prepared to make a transaction at the barnett bank just as an armored truck was unloading outside he looked up from his checkbook and watched as two masked robbers shot the guard in the back as the guard lay on the ground one of the gunmen shot him twice more this was the robbers fifth heist in just three months and another big hint they fled with fifty four thousand dollars william roberts trailed the men for [Music] blocks though he maintained his safe distance roberts worried the thieves knew he was following them still he stayed on their tail and noted their license tag and car model he tracked them to a parking lot where they pulled in next to a white pickup truck roberts parked across the street and continued to watch them he noted the make and model of the pickup truck but could not see the tag number after driving off roberts would flag down an officer and tell him the story the fbi responded to the scene and interviewed bank employees they found several 223 rounds later determined to be fired from the same weapon used in the first two robberies nearby fbi agents examined the getaway car the robbers had left behind but william roberts was the star witness thanks to roberts the fbi had the first big break in a three-month string of violent robberies a check on the license tag of the getaway car revealed the car was registered to a man named orilliano brielle agents prepared to pay him a visit since the car had never been reported stolen they suspected brielle was involved in the crimes they dressed for safety [Music] in miami the fbi had been tracking two masked gunmen who had been robbing armored cars and banks already killing one guard now agents had located the registered owner of one of the getaway cars on january 14 special agent morelos and the partner arrived at the home of orilliano brielle the registered owner of the car a woman opened the door special agent morales now works undercover and wears a hood to protect his identity she asked me if i was there about her son and i said yes i was as a matter of fact she said well my son emilio has been missing mrs brielle's husband came to the door and they invited the agents to come into the house [Music] mr brielle explained that his son emilio had disappeared three months ago with a family car which he borrowed to go target shooting in the everglades the brielles had filed a missing persons report but heard nothing they had hoped the agents brought news [Music] the fbi knew nothing of the young man's whereabouts and as the interview progressed agent morales grew certain the brielles knew nothing of the robberies [Music] the conclusion at the end of the day was that the brielle family was not involved they were victims their car had been stolen and their son was missing [Music] the metro dade police department processed the brielle's car with fbi agents observing but evidence technicians found no fingerprints or anything else to advance the case the next two months were quiet again though the robbers remained on the loose agents worked other cases as they continued to mine every possible resource for clues then on march 14 special agent ben grogan told a skeptical agent morales about a newspaper article he believed was related to the case show up in the next heist i guarantee it that car right the article reported the attempted murder of a man named jose collazo two days early two minutes shot collazo multiple times then they had stolen his gun in his car a black 1982 chevy monte carlo grogan swore that the vehicle would be the bank robber's next getaway car perpetrators while it seemed to some agents nothing more than a hunch they respected grope the car disappeared shot him four times with the arm through the face at 53 he was a career agent with 25 years on the job including time as a swat team leader is he still alive yeah he got up walked a mile and a half to a convenience store his colleagues called him the doctor [Music] because he could do jobs no one else could do what do you think check on these plates so they took a chance on his hunch get on it good job mr closet tell me what happened grogan and another agent visited collazo in the hospital there were two white man two white male collaza was in rough shape with wounds to the side of his head his arm and his back but he managed to tell the story of his nightmarish afternoon in the everglades collazo had gone to a recreational trail near a lake where gun owners often practice target shooting he was preparing his 22 when two men drove up beside him how you doing [Music] the driver pulled a gun on colossal hold up shut up who somehow had the presence of mind to identify it as a steel blue magnum revolver he pegged the other man's rifle as a ruger mini 14. [Music] now back on up back up back up shut up but they shot him several times anyway at close range then they left taking collazo's monte carlo and their own f-150 pickup truck as they drove off they believed collazo was dead he was just waiting until the shooters were gone then he would rally what little strength he had to survive collazo had to make a decision as to whether he would try to live or just lay down and die and collazo said he chose to try to live so he picked himself up out of that lake and walked almost a mile after being shot three times to seek help [Music] finding collazo was the best break in the case so far he provided the single clue no witness until now could offer a description of the suspect's faces they had not worn masks when they assaulted him using collazo's description a dade county police artist drew composite sketches of his assailants the drawings would be made into posters with information about the suspects in their crimes plus the warning that both men were heavily armed and extremely dangerous [Music] retired special agent john hanlon a 22-year fbi veteran then assigned to the violent crimes unit remembers what kalazu said collazo was able to give a description of the guys they told us about the white pickup truck he was shot in the same general area as we thought emilio brielle had disappeared in the coming days agents stepped up their efforts [Music] they conducted a grid search of the streets crossing south dixie highway in the vicinity of the bank robberies i got the agents together after i told them what i had on my mind they looked at me like i was crazy but i said i want you to get down between 88th street on south dixie highway and 185th street and come up with any license numbers on white ford f-150 pickup trucks something just told me in my gut that perhaps who knows we're trying to make our own luck what is it a million to 110 million to one i don't know but they came back with the license numbers of 10 white ford f-150 pickup trucks computerized checks of the license numbers would reveal the owners names agents would then request driver's license photos from the department of motor vehicles perhaps if collazo saw the photos he could identify the truck's owner but in 1986 technology was slow and before the photos came back from the dmv the robbers struck again on wednesday march 19th just one week after colossal's assault on south dixon back up get out come on get out get in the bag it was their sixth hit in five months give me the money put your face down be quiet one kept the terrified customers at bay the other looted money from a teller [Music] damn everybody go move the men escaped with over eight thousand dollars in cash [Music] as customers and employees recovered from the assault an off-duty customs official who had seen the robbers flee called police he'd noted the make of the getaway car a black chevy monte carlo and the tag number ntj891 just as agent grogan had predicted it was jose collazo's car they didn't even change the tag and we're not really sure whether they were well we're pretty sure they weren't that stupid but we speculate that in their minds you know they were these hard hard men and we think that they were probably just saying hey in your face police you know come and get us if you can investigate little of value from witnesses at this bank the security cameras had filmed the entire robbery but the videotape was of little use the camera's lenses had captured little more than unidentifiable mast bandits there was little doubt these robbers planned each hit carefully it appeared to me that they were doing surveillance of the banks prior to some of the robberies because on most occasions they robbed the bank within 10 minutes of delivery of a cash shipment by an armored car company so they were waiting until the cash was inside from the armored car company and then hit the bank [Music] on april 10th gordon mcneill and ben brogan discussed the case at firearms practice sifting for any clues they may have overlooked it had been about three weeks since the last robbery there were no clues to the thieves identities but mcneil detected a pattern you're always looking in law enforcement for you know for patterns of crime things that seem to happen on a consistent basis and the only thing that we had gone in these cases was this significant pattern that developed always on friday between 9 and 12 hitting the same banks multiple times always in the same 40 square block area always along south dixie highway agents plan to surveillance for the next day they would fan out to patrol the area where the robbers had struck so often hey guys you got a minute yeah supervisor gordon mcneil personally led the operation everybody will leave from that location so we just couldn't wait for them to rob another bank we had to get out there and we had to make our own luck and maybe we could find them for the vehicle agent hanlon remembers what happened next eddie morales walked over and said hey let's go down there and i thought well what the heck you know as a whim i mean i there's no pressure to go or anything of that kind i mean i certainly had left to do and we'll team up i like teddy and i figure well we'll go on down there we'll ride down and you know rather cavalierly and and spend some good times with ed and and we'll take it from there many believed it was a long shot but 14 miami fbi agents met in a parking lot at 8 45 a.m on friday april 11 1986. they would surveil a 53-block grid along south dixie highway where two commando style gunmen had pulled off three bank robberies and three armored car heists in six months the suspects were described as white men of medium build one with a handlebar mustache both about 30 years old they were heavily on probably going to be extremely dangerous they might be driving a black monte carlo license number ntj891 after a robbery spree that had lasted six months miami fbi agents went on the offensive in search of two killers possibly driving a black monte carlo met to patrol an area where the two armed robbers had used military tactics to hit armored cars and banks all would be stationed along the major thoroughfare of south dixie highway agents ben grogan and jerry dove were on their way to stake out the barnett bank when the impossible happened a car that fit the description of the suspect's vehicle pulled directly in front of him in disbelief agent rogan advised all units of what [Music] nothing could get broken and cited and i still remember his voice he said we are behind a black chevrolet monte carlo uh dave florida tag ntj891 he said that's the tag isn't it gordo i mean he was just incredulous agents morales and hanlon were stationed at the professional savings bank when they heard grogan's call they began to search for their colleagues with morales working the radio hanlon tried to get a gauge on grogan and dove's location i remember saying to eddie i mean uh call ben tell him to start calling the cross street so we'll know how close we're getting before daddy had a chance to go on the air ben starts calling off the cross streets and we're hitting those cross streets you know one after another so we were real close to them [Music] after proceeding south for several blocks hanlon and morales closed in behind them the robbers soon suspected they were being followed [Music] whether they knew their pursuers were fbi or not the suspects wanted to lose them [Music] they took a right turn 117th street into a residential neighborhood quiet at this time of day you're still following still behind us they're coming they turned right again trying to lose the tail but the agents hung on playing for time as agent morales recalls we were just trying to wait for as many fbi units to get to the location as possible and we were also basically responding to what the subjects did they weren't in any hurry when they turned on the 120th street they they actually slowed down the caravan continued on with the agents always concerned about endangering innocent bystanders then the suspects made a left onto 82nd it appeared they were heading back to the busy highway where civilians would be at risk should a confrontation turn violent [Music] when grogan saw the silhouette of a long-barreled rifle through the rear window of the subject's vehicle he knew it was time to act up let's do it it was clear the suspects were preparing to do battle grogan put the light on his car and ordered a felony stop rogan pulled alongside the suspect's car and ordered them to stop the suspects ignored the order and grogan pulled ahead of him blocking their escape the site made an indelible impression on veteran agent john hanlon and i'll never forget the the man's face i mean i could have done it i could pick him out today i mean he looked like your basic uh western bad man he looked very very determined it seemed the suspects were as desperate to prevail as the agents who pursued them two heavily armed fugitives had ignored fbi orders to stop their vehicle special agents now tried to force them to comply the last to catch up to the group was agent richard menouzzi as he pulled behind the suspect's car he saw one of the gunmen take aim at morales in handling menouzi rammed the fugitive's car from behind they swung into a u-turn and then menouzie was able to hit him again and knocked him over into this parking area up against some cars over there the passenger opened fire with the 14 assault life out gunned agent manausi crawled to cover agent mcneal arrived seconds later firing they were surrounded by fbi their vehicle could not move but they had superior firepower and they refused to surrender [Applause] the driver fired a shotgun blasted grover mcneil hit the driver but the semi-automatic kept pumping out the rounds until one final caught mcneil in the hand morelos and hanlon advanced to cover him hanlon's 38 held five rounds the mini 14 30 rounds in each clip and one of them shot down agent morelos it was all one continuous recollection it was like one second i'm looking at gordon mcneill's back trying to maneuver to his left and the next second is blue sky [Music] and i looked at my left arm and my left arm was completely shattered it was like roadkill his partner was down but the shooter kept on following but when he tried to escape out the window [Music] jerry dove hit him in the chest with his nine millimeter [Music] but to dove's horror the man shot mcneil in the neck i couldn't move my upper body i couldn't move my arm and i couldn't move my legs so i assumed that i was totally paralyzed at that particular point i couldn't move two more fbi agents arrived by now the shooter had been hit four times but he continued to advance and fire [Music] he just made up his mind that he was gone down he was gone out and he was going to take as many of us with him as he possibly could the agents knew they were outgunned firing sick shooters against the suspect's 30 round semi-automatic assault dove and grogan were forced to retreat behind their car to reload [Applause] hanlon too reloaded but the shooter kept on coming and one went right through my knuckles on my right hand and through the knuckle in my thumb a bunch of lid and whatever went into the back of my arm and i remember my gun going flying i said ben i've been hit as hanlin tried to retreat under the bumper the gunman shot him in the groin [Applause] the blood geysered from my groin to my knee i mean the blood just came out like a balloon breaking grogan was hit [Music] and then dove before they could reload their weapons i remember ben saying oh my god and i he fell at my feet and at some point along in here i heard the blood or heard the breath go out of him he went the subject made his way to agent dove's car with his left arm nearly blown off agent morelos managed to pull himself up the shooter was trying to flee and morales had to stop him mortally wounded the second suspect somehow dragged himself out of his car and joined his partner if the car started morales knew they could only go in reverse back over the fallen agents eventually i just got angry because i knew internally that i was dying and my one last thought was hey if i'm gonna die i'm gonna take these guys with me i'm gonna make sure that they're dead with his shotgun empty mirrorless changed to his revolver and staggered forward firing at the subjects morales shots lodged in the men's spines killing them both it was a violent end to the lives of two violent men just a few minutes after it began the bloodiest firefight in fbi history ended in tragedy two agents were dead and five wounded two suspects still unidentified had also been killed [Applause] agent jerry dove lay dead at the age of 30 he'd earned a law degree and fulfilled his boyhood dream of joining the fbi he wanted to make a difference and had given his life trying his partner ben grogan had also perished in the fire fight he had been just one year away from retirement when his wife could finally have stopped worrying about her husband's dangerous career crime scene technicians arrived at the site metro dade county homicide bureau sergeant david rivers was also there rivers had the herculean task of reconstructing five minutes of living terror that would take weeks well we have to find out what happened and you do that in in various ways you you obviously speak to the agents that were involved and they can tell you what each one of them did individually and then part of that is to take those different statements as to what they did individually and match it up with the physical evidence the wounds on the body the the bullet holes in the cars where the guns are located where the cars are located and to reconstruct it to make sure everything's exactly uh interpreted properly technicians recovered 143 bullets fired from the fugitives weapons questions that had plagued agents for so long were finally being answered the ruger mini 14 rifle used to kill agents grogan and dove would match the 223 bullets found at some of the armored car and bank robbery scenes in fact the fbi crime lab could now forensically link the killers with several of the earlier heists [Music] and from fingerprints the agent soon identified the subjects as 32-year-old michael lee platt and 34 year old william russell maddox but one question remained what kind of men had wreaked this destruction and why agents could not have been more surprised by what they learned from the killer's friends and neighbors instead of outlaws living on the edge prepared for the ultimate confrontation platt and maddox were known as quiet family men photos showed their families relaxing together platt had a wife and three children maddox was a single dad they were partners in a landscaping business but further investigation gave up the lie of their double life inside a shed agents found guns and ammunition including the 22 maddox and platted stolen from jose kalazzi when they tried to kill him in the everglades agents would also uncover evidence of a bizarre murder pact in which the men may have killed each other's previous wives no one had been charged in the two cases but now they would be reopened within days agents would confirm that maddox and platt had killed 25 year old emilio brielle in the everglades a hiker found brielle's skeletal remains in the everglades not far from where collazo had been assaulted then another tragic footnote surfaced hey how special agent steve warner received a package from the florida department of motor vehicles and it was a copy of william russell maddox's driver's license he was the owner of one of the white ford f-150 pickup trucks agents had located a few weeks before [Music] but there had been a delay in sending the licenses if they had arrived april 11th or prior to that collazo would have been able to positively identify maddox and we probably would have been able to arrest medics and also plot and two fbi agents wouldn't have been killed but that's not the way the luck worked out in this particular case the fbi investigation revealed that both of the killers had served in the military plant had been a ranger a member of the army's elite first strike force which explained the pair's commando tactics fundamentally different than training received by law enforcement we don't have an acceptable body count in civilian law enforcement we're taught one way and that's defensive type shooting you take cover you do not take casualties and then you look at the way platte reacted that day he reacted in a military fashion he had the heavier weapon he had the mini 14 with a 30 round capacity his back was basically against the wall he had no place to go so he advanced forward on our position laying down suppression fire and ambushed grogan and dove who were behind the car as agents finally put the pieces together a frightening portrait emerged of two formidable adversaries at the end of the shooting platt had 11 hits maddox had six hits platte was literally shot to pieces and he kept fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting until he ran out of breath he fought to the last they were gonna die it's just they weren't dying fast enough and they weren't prepared to lay down and die you know they weren't about to give up out of this tragedy came some positive changes that have improved the safety of all in the law enforcement community agents and officers now carry more powerful weapons and their training better prepares them for violent confrontations like the one on april 11 1986 [Music] as hundreds mourned the deaths of two dedicated and selfless fbi agents those in law enforcement have looked for meaning in the tragic events of that april morning over the years gordon mcneill has found some resolution the story's not platinumatics it's not important who who they were it's important to recall the the courage that was shown by the agents that day and and the fbi they did their job [Applause] [Music] you

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail, miami, 1986 fbi miami shootout

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Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020