After two Miami police officers fired 17 times across a busy intersection at some fleeing purse snatchers, they claimed that one of the suspects had pulled a blue steel revolver. But no gun was ever found. Instead, police relied on a dubious and contradictory confession from one of the robbers, a mentally ill 17-year-old named Termain Robbins, who said one of his pals had shot at officers with a .44 Magnum through the back window of their car.

He now says he made up the story under pressure from investigators, an accusation that police deny. But like many other shooting cases involving Miami police officers, no one dug very deeply to resolve the contradictions, a Herald investigation has found. A review of more than a decade of Miami shootings uncovered nearly two dozen cases in which officers were cleared despite evidence - disregarded by investigators and police brass - that suggested the shootings might not have happened as officers claimed. Today, Robbins tells a different story: There was no gun, and no shots were fired. "I was so scared and I didn't know what to do, " Robbins said in a recent interview with The Herald. The detective in the case said there was no coercion. Still, Robbins' original statement was enough for detectives and a shooting review panel, headed by now-Police Chief Raul Martinez, to clear the two officers. "Many of the cases were rubber-stamped, " said Miami police Capt. David Rivero, acknowledging problems in his own department. "Even if there were contradictory statements from other witnesses and bad guys, you don't consider that - because you believe the cops." One of those officers in the Robbins shooting was José Quintero. He and 12 other Miami officers now face federal charges of helping to plant guns and concoct stories in five other suspect shootings. Quintero's lawyer said the shooting was justified. The conflicts were minor and easily explained by the high-pressure circumstances, he said.

BRIDGING THE GAP Police unit in charge of resolving the issues

The job of bridging the gap between officers' stories and what really happened fell to internal affairs, the squad that investigates charges of wrongdoing by officers, and all police shootings. But even when investigators had doubts about officers' conduct, often nobody followed up. "The tough questions were never asked, " Rivero said. "The conflicts in testimony were never addressed. They were just discounted." Martinez said the review board during his tenure tried to resolve contradictions, though he said he did not remember details of specific cases. He said it is often difficult to refute officers' stories. "If they were brought to the board, the board would not rule until those contradictions were resolved, explained away, or there was some impasse, " Martinez said. At the same time, he acknowledged that Miami detectives' probes of police shootings were often crippled by leading questions and a lack of skepticism. Martinez said he is now pushing to toughen up investigations. "Instead of 'Why did you shoot?' the question is, 'Did you shoot because you were in fear for your life?' " Martinez said. "Obviously not the type of question you want to ask. We found some of those cases that were disturbing." On Super Bowl Sunday in 1992, Robbins and friends Fabian "Poo Poo" Sullivan, Michael Lodico and Monroe Jackson were driving around in a stolen red Camaro, looking for victims. They picked three people from Kentucky who were sitting in the drive-through lane of a Kentucky Fried Chicken on Biscayne Boulevard. Bad choice. Across the street from the restaurant - inside a Miami police ministation - a police aide watched as the youths yanked a purse and jumped back into their car. Quintero and Francisco Casanovas were on their tail before they made 10 blocks. The Camaro went north on I-95, exited at 79th Street, swerved onto the sidewalk to dodge stopped cars, then pulled a U-turn and smashed into Quintero's car. Casanovas pulled up behind, and the two robbers in the front took off. "The driver gets out, I see what appears to be a handgun, and pointing to Officer Quintero's direction, " Casanovas said. "So I immediately pulled my service pistol out and fired through my window." Said Quintero: "As he was running, he started to point the gun towards me." Quintero fired 11 times, Casanovas six. They missed. Robbins and Sullivan say that's fiction. "They just opened fire, " Sullivan said. "We never had no gun in that car - no way. They just scared Termain [Robbins] into saying that. They blew out every window in the car." Robbins' confession was a bad fit with the evidence. First, there was no gun used in the purse snatching. Second, Robbins had told detectives, in his original confession, that Sullivan shot at the officers just after they exited I-95. But in sworn court statements, Casanovas and Quintero never mention being fired upon - even though Quintero was directly behind the fleeing car when its back window supposedly exploded. Both Sullivan and Robbins were captured in the back seat of the car. Again, no gun. Casanovas and Quintero explain that by saying the gun was pointed by Lodico, one of the two robbers who ran from the car. But Robbins' confession - on which police relied that night - was entirely different. He said it was Sullivan who had the gun. "It is conceivable that the weapon changed hands inside the vehicle, " wrote internal affairs Detective Julian Garcia. Lodico and the fourth robber, Monroe Jackson, were caught minutes later, two blocks away. No gun was ever found. Those discrepancies were never resolved. Robbins was never asked about a gun changing hands. The three other robbers insisted in court proceedings that there was no weapon, though they admitted snatching the purse and fleeing police. The entire case suggesting that the officers were shot at that night rested on Robbins, who would spend his two-year prison term in Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee as a diagnosed schizophrenic. He is now living in Liberty City in his family's home. "They told me I would get 25 years, " Robbins said. "They said I was driving. I wasn't driving. They told me I better start helping them or I would go away for a long time." The taped interview makes it clear that the shooting was discussed before the tape recorder was turned on. Miami police Detective Wilfredo Fonticiella, not Robbins, first brings up some details - including the presence of a gun. "I don't like to go into an interview like that without as many facts as I can get, " said Fonticiella, now retired. "I recall that entire investigation was conducted with [internal affairs] right in the room." He said he did not remember enough details to address the conflicting accounts. Likewise, Garcia, the internal affairs detective who sat in on the taped interview, said he did not remember the case. Casanovas declined to discuss the shooting. Sam Rabin, Quintero's lawyer, said there are always conflicts - particularly when some of the people giving statements have committed crimes. The gun could have been ditched by one of the fleeing robbers, he said. "If there were no contradictions, you'd be saying it's too neat a story, " he said. NAGGING QUESTIONS Cases cleared despite discrepancies in evidence