Miami-Dade officer charged in UPS truck shootout granted Stand Your Ground hearing
A Miami-Dade police officer charged in the deaths of two innocent bystanders during a 2019 shootout at a busy intersection is in court Monday after requesting that his charges be dropped under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.
Broward Circuit Court Judge Ernest Kollra found that suspended officer Jose Mateo was entitled to a hearing on his Stand Your Ground motion. In his order, Kollra agreed that there was evidence that indicated that Mateo acted to prevent death or bodily harm.
Mateo, 33, and three other Miami-Dade Sheriff’s deputies, Richard Santiesteban, 40, Leslie Lee, 58 and Rodolfo Mirabal, 39, were indicted on manslaughter charges in June 2024. All pleaded not guilty and all have been suspended without pay. Frank Ordóñez, a 27-year-old UPS truck driver, and Rick Cutshaw, 70, were killed in a hail of gunfire in the packed intersection of Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road during rush hour in December 2019.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade deputy charged in UPS driver’s death claims Stand Your Ground
At the days-long hearing, prosecutors will need to prove that Mateo’s use of force wasn’t justified. Mateo’s trial is scheduled to begin next week.
The Stand Your Ground law allows a person — and police officers — in the state to take up to deadly action if they feel their life is threatened. The fleeing felon law allows police to shoot at a suspect if they believe that person is a danger to society while trying to avoid custody.
The officers were charged after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement identified five bullets from Ordóñez’s autopsy. Two linked to back to Santiesteban, and the rest to Mateo, Lee and Mirabal. A single bullet was recovered during Cutshaw’s autopsy. That one was tied to Mirabal, the report states.
At Monday’s hearing, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent who investigated the shooting, said that Santiesteban emptied two 23-round capacity magazines and could have fired up to 44 rounds.
Mateo fired up to 18 rounds from his department-issued Glock 17, according to the FDLE. The magazine holds up to 17, and he had one round in the chamber, the agent testified.
Per the FDLE, investigators determined 20 officers fired up to 219 rounds during the mahem.
Also killed that day: Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill, two ex-cons whose exploits that day began with a bungled attempt to rob a Coral Gables jewelry store.
Hill and Alexander then hijacked the UPS truck driven by Ordóñez — with the driver still in it. That ignited a high-speed chase — and the shootout that ended with Hill, Alexander, Ordóñez and Cutshaw dead.
Monday’s hearing highlighted the massive fire power the officers on scene unleashed that afternoon. The FDLE investigator detailed each officer involved and how many bullets he or she possibly fired — calculated by the capacity of the magazine for their gun and how many bullets were left when they turned the firearms over to investigators.
One officer, from Pembroke Pines Police Department, who was not charged, emptied a 30-round magazine from his personal semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle, the FDLE said. Another, from Miami-Dade, fired up to 26 rounds from his department-issued Palmetto State Arms rifle, according to the FDLE.
Miami Herald staff writers Chuck Rabin and David Goodhue contributed to this report
This story was originally published August 25, 2025 at 3:44 PM.
