South Florida police murder UPS Teamster hostage in shootout
Miami, FL – The busy holiday season for UPS Teamsters took a deadly turn on December 5 in South Florida. Miramar police shot and killed UPS driver Frank Ordonez while firing dozens of times into the side of a UPS truck he had been taken hostage in. They also killed a civilian who was nearby.
After committing a failed robbery at a jewelry store in Miami suburb Coral Gables, the two burglars carjacked a UPS truck and took the driver hostage. They led police on a chase 20 miles north to Miramar. Upon getting stuck in traffic, police immediately began using cars filled with civilians who were waiting at a traffic light as human shields. They fired blindly into the truck with automatic rifles and killed not only the burglars, but the hostage and a motorist who happened to be on the scene.
Miramar resident Conor Munro said, “I watched the whole episode unfold live. That intersection is one of the busiest in the area, and the police turned it into a war zone. Instantly hundreds of cops were on the scene, firing easily 50 times. It’s no surprise they killed an innocent woman just sitting in her car. The killers need to be charged. Not only that, there needs to be a way we can stop this from happening again. Endless police militarization will only lead to more deaths like these. We need community control of the police now.”
Teamsters locals across the country released statements expressing their condolences for the driver and his young family. Meanwhile, UPS released a statement thanking law enforcement for their work without acknowledging the murder, implicitly taking the side of the police over Ordonez, his family, and the safety of UPS workers everywhere.