The main lesson to take from the Miami shootout is that mental toughness is the best weapon you can carry into any fight.
It also shows how bad things can get when mental toughness fails.
The biggest mystery of the Miami shootout, to me, is what happened to S.A. Grogan. Grogan was supposedly the best shot of all the Agents, the guy who had trained his whole career for just such a confrontation. But something went very badly wrong for S.A. Grogan at some point during the fire fight.
He had lost his glasses in the initial collision, and although profoundly near-sighted, he still managed to engage targets and actually score some hits. After the incident, investigators determined that he had fired 9 rounds from his 14+1 capacity S&W 459.
When Platt charged his position at the back of the car, Grogan still had six rounds of ammo left and his weapon was still operational. Even though he had an apparently unobstructed view of Platt, he did not engage him as Platt approached him and shot him in the chest.
The nearest survivor, S.A. Hanlon, stated that he heard Grogan exclaim "Oh, my god" just before Platt shot him. So Grogan apparently was aware of Platt's approach, but for unexplained reasons was not able to engage Platt. Why? Did Platt's assault un-nerve Grogan to the point that he was unable to react? It seems that it might be a possibility.
Supervisory Agent McNeil, who was also wounded in Platt's assault, stated that he remembered very vividly that Platt was smiling at him as he was firing on him, a very un-nerving sight for anyone. Seeing an assailant that has already taken numerous hits that should have incapacitated him approach your position, smiling at you as they take aim, could very well be enough juice to flip someone's breaker.
We will never know for sure, and I can understand the reluctance to probe the subject much out of consideration of the deceased, but something unusual happened at the back of Grogan & Dove's car. Something that ought to be probed if we want a better understanding of combat psychology.
