'Stand your ground' claim upheld, charges dropped against 3 officers in Florida shootout

Cindy Krischer Goodman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Mar 23, 2026

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Broward County judge has ruled that three Miami-Dade police officers who were involved in a shootout that killed a bystander and a UPS driver taken hostage by jewelry store robbers should not face manslaughter charges based on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

Miami-Dade police officers Rodolfo Mirabal, Richard Santiesteban and Leslie Lee had been charged in the deaths of UPS driver Frank Ordoñez, 27, and Richard Cutshaw, 70, a motorist in the wrong place at the wrong time. The officers had fired at Ordoñez’s captors at a busy intersection in Miramar during a high-speed chase on Dec. 5, 2019.

On Monday, Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra ruled the Stand Your Ground law applied to the officers after police body-cam videos confirmed the testimony of witnesses that the armed robbers had shot at the officers during their pursuit and at anyone who came near the UPS truck that they had commandeered. The court found that the officers took the action they believed necessary to save lives, and that the state had not proved otherwise.

“The court finds that the state has not established by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant did not have a reasonable belief that his use of deadly force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony,” the ruling said.

Those are the qualifications individuals must meet under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. It allows for the use of force, including deadly force, if the person believes it’s necessary to prevent harm.

Last year, the same judge, Kollra, ruled that Jose Mateo, a fourth Miami-Dade office involved in the shootout, should not be subject to prosecution because he was acting lawfully in the belief that his use of force was necessary to end a threat caused by the two robber-kidnappers who instigated the confrontation.

The incident started when Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill robbed a Coral Gables jewelry store, then hijacked Ordoñez’s UPS truck 2 miles away and took him with them on a high-speed chase into Broward County that ended at a crowded Miramar intersection. Nearly two dozen marked and unmarked police cars from different agencies were involved in the chase at some point. Both Alexander and Hill were killed, however, no charges were filed in connection with their deaths.

The five bullets found in Ordoñez’s body during an autopsy traced back to the guns of Lee, Santiesteban, Mateo and Mirabal, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation report released in August 2024. The one bullet found in the bystander, Cutshaw, during the autopsy traced back to Mirabal’s gun.

Kollra had listened over two-and-a-half weeks to testimony and arguments, including testimony from one of the officers, who offered an account of the events leading up to the shooting.

Following the ruling Monday, the Broward State Attorney’s Office issued this statement: “It is our belief that Stand Your Ground immunity does not apply in matters involving innocent bystanders, like Frank Ordoñez and Richard Cutshaw, who presented no danger to officers. In this incident, two innocent men were killed, and the lives of numerous other innocent bystanders were endangered.”

The statement noted that the September ruling involved Mateo is already under appeal. “We plan to appeal these three rulings, too,” the Broward State Attorney’s Office said.

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