Florida Shootout: 4 Dead After Botched Robbery And Chase With Stolen UPS Truck

Four people including a UPS driver and an innocent bystander were killed after a botched up robbery led to a wild rush-hour police chase Thursday, which ended in a fatal shootout.

The incident began to unfold, when police were tipped off by a silent alarm from Regent Jewelers in Coral Gables, in Miami-Dade County shortly after 4:00 p.m. There were two suspects in the store and shots were being fired when the police arrived at the scene, Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak said during a news conference.

A worker at the jewelry store was injured during the robbery, however, it remains unclear whether she was shot.

The suspects first escaped in a truck and then carjacked a UPS truck taking the driver hostage and sped away, running red lights and narrowly avoiding crashes during the rush hour. A long line of emergency vehicles was in pursuit of the UPS truck as the chase continued in the southern portion of Broward County.

The truck finally came to a stop when it encountered traffic at a crowded intersection in Miramar. Television footage showed cops getting out of their cars and approaching the truck from behind, some of them with their weapons drawn.

Shots were fired shortly after 5:30 p.m., and muzzle flashes were visible in the television footage. It is unclear whether the robbers or the police fired first. A person was seen falling out of the vehicle’s passenger side after the shootout.

Both the suspects and the driver of the UPS truck were killed in the shootout. The fourth victim was an innocent bystander sitting in a car at the intersection when the shootout took place.

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

It is not clear if anything from the jewelry store was taken. The police and law enforcement agencies are currently investigating multiple crime scenes including the jewelry store and the site where the UPS truck was carjacked.

“It is very, very early on in the investigation and it would be completely inappropriate to discuss that,” FBI Special Agent in Charge George 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.”

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