Miami-Dade Officer Jose Mateo seeks immunity under Florida's Stand Your Ground law after a 2019 Miramar shootout that killed two unintended victims. Mateo contends that his use of deadly force to confront kidnappers who had abducted a UPS driver and driven to a busy intersection was protected because he acted to protect himself and others. Prosecutors contend Stand Your Ground cannot be applied when the people who died were not the ones who posed the threat. Mateo is one of four Miami officers charged with manslaughter in the deaths of the kidnapped driver Frank Ordonez and bystander Richard Cutshaw. A judge intends to rule Monday, and the defense predicts appeals.
Mateo is raising what lawyers agreed is a novel application of the state's law blocking prosecutions in certain self-defense cases - he's asking Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra to find that he is entitled to immunity even though the people who died are not the people against whom he was standing his ground. Florida's Stand Your Ground law was intended to protect potential victims who use force, including deadly force, to protect themselves or others from someone who poses an imminent threat.
In arguments before Kollra, prosecutor Chuck Morton said Mateo (and by extension fellow officers Rodolfo Mirabal, Richard Santiesteban, and Leslie Lee, who did not file similar motions) were not entitled to invoke the Stand Your Ground law because he is not accused of killing the people who were threatening his life or the lives of others. "Stand your ground does not transfer to unintended victims," he said.
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