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Chase with stolen UPS truck ends with shootout, 4 dead

MIRAMAR,
Fla. (AP) — Four people, including a UPS driver, were killed Thursday
after robbers stole the driver’s truck and led police on a chase that
ended in gunfire at a busy Florida intersection during rush hour, the
FBI said.

Both robbers were shot and killed, and the fourth victim
was in a nearby vehicle when shots rang out at a crowded intersection
in Miramar, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of where the incident
began, FBI Special Agent in Charge George Piro said during a news
conference Thursday night.

Television news helicopters showed
first responders tending to at least one person who fell out of the UPS
truck, moments after several shots were fired when the chase ended.

“It’s very early in the investigative process,” Piro said. “There are a lot of questions that are still unanswered.”

In
Coral Gables, where the incident began, police said a jewelry store
worker was also injured but did not say if she had been shot. There was
no immediate update on her condition.

It all started shortly after
4 p.m., when police in Coral Gables received a silent alarm at the
Regent Jewelers store in the city’s Miracle Mile area. Coral Gables
Police Chief Ed Hudak said during a news conference that two suspects
were at the store and that shots were being fired when police, summoned
by a silent alarm from inside the store, arrived.

The suspects
fled in a truck, then carjacked the UPS delivery truck and its driver
not long afterward to start the chase into the southern portion of
Broward County, running red lights and narrowly avoiding some crashes
along the way. The UPS truck finally stopped in one of the middle lanes
of a busy roadway, caught behind a wall of other vehicles waiting for a
red light to turn green. Television footage showed several officers on
foot, some with guns drawn, approaching the truck from the rear and the
driver’s side once it stopped.

Katherine Gonzalez said officers
were in front of her vehicle, a few feet away from the UPS truck, when
the shootout started “out of nowhere.”

“It was shocking,” she said.

News
helicopters were following the chase and at least one showed the
conclusion live, with one person falling out of the vehicle’s passenger
side after several shots were fired. It was unclear if the shots were
fired from inside the truck, from law enforcement who were moving in or
some combination thereof. The fourth victim, in another car at the
intersection, was “an innocent bystander,” Piro said.

“This is what dangerous people do to get away,” Hudak said. “And this is what people will do to avoid capture.”

Piro was asked if there was a chance that either the driver or the bystander may have been hit by a bullet fired by police.

“It
is very, very early on in the investigation and it would be completely
inappropriate to discuss that,” Piro said. “We have just began to
process the crime scene. As you can imagine, this is going to be a very
complicated crime scene.”

During the robbery, a bullet hit a
window at Coral Gables’ City Hall, which was locked down, Hudak said. No
one inside City Hall was believed to be injured, Hudak said.

Hudak
said officers responded within 90 seconds, including one officer on
foot who was involved in a nearby traffic stop. It was not immediately
clear if anything from the jewelry store was taken, Hudak said.

Hours
after the chase ended, medical gauze, wrappers and other debris
remained strewn across the Miramar roadway’s middle lane, next to the
truck which still had its right rear door open. Traffic remained
snarled, and it was not clear how long it would take investigators to
clear the scene.

There are multiple crime scenes — the jewelry
store, the site where the UPS truck was stolen, and the intersection
where the incident ended, adding to the challenge investigators will
face in piecing together the details.

UPS spokesman David Graves said the company would cooperate with authorities.

“We
are deeply saddened to learn a UPS service provider was a victim of
this senseless act of violence,” Graves said in a statement. “We extend
our condolences to the family and friends of our employee and the other
innocent victims involved in this incident.”

___

Reynolds reported from Miami.