Judge Grants Immunity to 3 Officers in 2019 UPS Shooting

A South Florida judge ruled on Monday that three Miami-Dade police officers cannot be prosecuted for their roles in the fatal shooting of a UPS driver during a 2019 police chase and gun battle, invoking Florida's Stand Your Ground law to grant them immunity. The decision by Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra clears Officers Richard Santiesteban, Leslie Lee and Rodolfo Mirabal of manslaughter charges related to the death of 27-year-old Frank Ordonez, marking the second such ruling in the case after a similar immunity grant for Officer Jose Mateo last September.

The incident unfolded on December 5, 2019, when two armed men, Lamar Alexander and Ronnie Jerome Hill, attempted an armed robbery at a jewelry store in Coral Gables, in Miami-Dade County. The suspects fled the scene by abducting Ordonez from his UPS delivery truck and forcing him to drive away as he made routine package drops. What followed was a high-speed pursuit involving multiple law enforcement agencies, spanning Miami-Dade and neighboring Broward counties. The chase ended amid rush-hour traffic at the busy intersection of Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road in Miramar, where the suspects stopped the truck and opened...