Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The FBI shoot Out In Miami 1986

A couple of random points.
Out here, in liberal Kalifornia, nobody that's been in the Special Forces of any military unit is hired as a cop. Some won't even hire ex US Marines. All are deemed too agressive.
Nowadays, as far I can tell, the Bad Guys kill about the same number of cops as the cops kill BG's. Nice, huh.
I'm not a bit convinced that any police agency has learned much from this and other cop killings. All the training and the best equipment in the world means nothing w/o proper attitude, or mind set. You can't have that and be politically correct nowadays. E

Part of that is because Hoover's legacy of the first order of business being "DO NOT EMBARRASS THE BUREAU" is alive and well. The poor decision making and tactical maneuvers used that day have been palmed off on not using the right hardware or bullets. Again, Topper, et al have been held up as THE LAST WORD in bullet construction here on these pages. The 147 grain subsonic load is THE best 9mm round for LE...ain't it?

I thought the 38 Super sprung from the need to penetrate car doors back in the Roaring 20's...

According to the story I Google up that is true in addition to body armour. The .38 Super was an up grade to the .38ACP. Speed than with a 147 grain bullet was about 1200 FPS. Today, the speed supposedly is 1400 FPS with the same bullet. I haven't check to see if that's true.

Jwp,

You could be right, but the reality is, in 1986 it's highly unlikely the FBI would ever allow the use of FMJ ammo. And still, there's no guarantee an FMJ would have penetrated in a straight line. Round noses are notorious for not penetrating straight. That's why anyone who knows anything about solid bullets knows to use a flat point design, because the nose of the bullet weighs almost as much as the base. In a round nose, they tend to want to swap ends because he base is heavier.

I'm really not sure caliber would have changed anything. In 1986, had they picked a different caliber, chances are, they would have chosen a bullet that would have produced results very similar to the 9mm Silvertip. The thinking at that time was expansion was more important than penetration. We've learned since then.

Most factory .38 Super's really aren't much more than the 9mm. But there are a few who load the .38 Super to its potential, and when properly loaded, I think the .38 Super is one hell of a good fighting round; especially if barrier penetration is needed. The original 130 ball is a great penetrator, and modern 147's have very few peers in the realm of penetration. It's an excellent round that's largely overlooked. That's mostly because the design of the .38 Super is rather obsolete. It was created specifically to function in a pistol like the 1911 where cartridge overall length plays an important role in the feed reliability of the gun. The 1905 Colt and the 1911 were both designed with a certain cartridge length in mind, and the .38 Super was THE way to make a 9mm work in the 1911 at the time. Now days, we know that you can just modify the feed lips of a magazine to better time the release of the cartrige, and make short cartridges work reliably in the 1911 (like the 9mm & .40).

IME the 230 ball will penetrate straight enough to exit an Antelope in a relatively straight fashion on broadside shots. At some point they will indeed yaw and or tumble and go off line.
The Flat point is better not only for straight line penetration, but also leave a much larger wound channel and much greater terminal effect, no doubt.

The point is that more penetration even with an inferior nose shape would have paid dividends

For those that haven't read the FBI report, here's a link.

FBI Report Miami Shootout

A lot of things could be said about the incident but for me it boils down to 4 things:

Bad execution of the takedown in general
Piss poor shooting
Less than good bullet performance
An adversary that was better armed & (maybe) more skilled at gunfighting that the Feds.

Though the numbers were greatly on the Fed's side, they got their azzes handed to them in spades.

MM

So your logic believes that Agent Dove would have missed with a 45? Amazing!

I believe that the agents shot extremely well given the circumstances. One of the agents put a bullet in Platt from 35 yards away and into the chest at that. One of them was also wounded 35 yards away.

Next time you get in a firefight against a suspect that is firing a semi automatic high capacity rifle at you and is moving in and out of cover at the same time, be sure and let us know what your hit ratio is.

JWP luck is luck...Dove did not use skill to place that bullet there. Lets just say that the 9mm bullet was doing 1200 fps and the old 45 would have been doing 800 fps. Do you think that the 45 bullet ends up at the same location as the 9mm did? Its a guess plain and simple.

35 yards is and ain't a long way with a pistol. Those agents instead of shooting to hear the guns go off should have been watching there sights and making hits. Really they should have brought rifles to the fight but they did not so they had to fight with what they had.

Platt was one man firing one gun at a time. While he was shooting at one guy the others should have been putting rounds on him. The truth of the matter is they were not mentally prepared for what happened. They lost all mental conrol and fired blindly in the direction of Platt.

So what if Platt was using cover. Were the agents not using cover? Are saying any turd that uses cover in a gunfight should be missed numerous times?

Platt and Matix were out numbered and really outgunned up close. They had the will and the want to win and damn near did. When Platt was shot he carried on with winning the fight unlike some of the agents. It is a good thing that Matix was knocked out from the shot to the sinus cavity or they would have won the fight. Not because they were better gunman but because they had a fighting attitude.

Dink

How can you or any one else make the claim that skill had nothing to do with agent Dove's shot? Lucky or skill or both it makes zero difference, the bullet was located perfectly given the shot angl presented

35 yards with a had gun in a firefight is considered exceptional shooting

Using cover and laying down an effecting field of fire makes accurate return fire difficult, not impossible but much more difficult, that is why the military does it that way

There was a article in one of the old Handgun magazines (I think) and they refer to that shot as the million dollar shot. The forensics guys actually figured, with measurments, how that shot was made.
What I am about to post is from memory so part of it could be wrong. Dove made that shot as Platt was either getting out of a car or diving between cars. Platt had his arm in a certain postition to take the bullet where it hit his body (arm up I believe). They knew that both Dove and Platt were moving and the bullet and Platt just happen to come together. If Platt would not have moved exacatly as he did the bullet either would have struck a arm or missed.

There is also another article titled something to effect of Once in Lifetime shots and that shot is discussed in there also.

I also consider 35 yards to good shooting in a fight but there 8 agents involved in the fight and some of them should have made those shots as some were much closer than 35 yards.

Dink

I see this 1986 firefight as poor plan of attck #1 and lack of adequate firepower. They needed the 10mm caliber instead of what they had at that time.

Now even the 10mm is no real match for a .223 cal rifle in the hands of the bad guy simply put, he has the upper hand in firepower. The FBI should have been armed with rifles also~!!!

"Million Dollar Shot" was coined by Agent Mireless ( you know the agent that used the shotgun one handed) meaning it was a great shot. Platt was exiting through the car window and was exposed fro only a second or so. From a distance of 30 feet or so and a narrow view agent Dove put the 115 grain 9mm bullet through Platts right bicep the bullet exited the arm and entered the chest cavity in line with the heart. The bullet came to rest short of the heart. This was fatal shot none the less, since the bullet severed a main artery and Platt was bleeding to death. Platt continued to fight for another 4 1/2 minutes. If the bullet would have destroyed the heart 30 to 45 seconds and Platt would have been unable to continue to fight.

I do not believe that Dove was moving when he fired the fatal shot, but he was killed after firing the fatal shot

Make my side arm a 45, I know that it would have sealed the deal with the ammo that I use. Ammo tested by someone that I trust, ME.

Just a general comment not aimed at anyone specifically. I can't quite get my head around the fascination everyone has with this incident and the need to analyze every second of it, considering the number of police gunfights that occur. The 7 Ps pretty much cover the most important lesson to be learned. With that said, I think long guns in most FBI hands would have made up a lot of the lost ground and ended a lot of the caliber debates.

The good guys are supposed to win!

Fortunately it was only a movie. William Matix survived the film, changed his name to Burt Gummer, and rendered all humanity safe from graboids.

The account I read said all of the agents had long guns available in their cars, some shotguns and some MP-5's. They also weren't wearing body armor that had been issued to each of them.
They were outsmarted to say the least!

Yep.

Body armor would have been no help against the rifle absent hard plates, which they likely didn't have.