The dude was dead, of course. He was one of the suspects. Pot-bellied guy with black hair. He lay on his back. His left arm was taped where the paramedics had tried to get some fluids going before giving up; the chubby guy"s clothes were soaked with too much blood. A man wearing rubber gloves fished through the dead man"s pockets.

What grips onlookers at such times is the proximity of recent death. The danger is past, but the aftermath transfixes.

On television, blazing shoot-outs are followed by commercials. Real-life murder scenes do not dissolve so easily; not in the eye, not in the mind. The color of death is unforgettable.

There is also a ponderous ritual to investigation; the more victims, the longer it takes. On Friday the dead men lay where they fell for four hours.

Finally the killers were placed in the back of a light-blue van and hauled off to the medical examiner.

The agents were taken away in separate hea.r.s.es.

The color of death was jet black.

Gunman, shot 12 times, wouldn"t quit August 6, 1986 The epilogue to the bloodiest shootout in FBI history is a stack of four autopsy reports, numbered 86-966 through 86-969 in the Dade medical examiner"s office.

These are detached and clinical accounts, as precise as can be expected considering the mayhem behind the Suniland Shopping Center. Each file has a diagram of where the cars came to rest at 12.201 SW 8lnd Ave. on the morning of April 11. Drawn next to the automobiles are supine stick-figure bodies, four of them.

Two of the figures represent FBI agents Gerald Dove and Ben Grogan. The others are robbers Michael Lee Platt and William R. Matix.

The files are a collection of tangible and observable facts, some well-publicized and some obscure. For instance, all four of the men had Type O blood. Three wore Nike running shoes; both Dove and his killer took size 10 1/2.The two suspects died wearing empty shoulder holsters. Platt had a black glove on his right hand.

William Matix, the man originally thought to have murdered the two agents, probably didn"t kill anybody. He fired his shotgun only once. He was shot in the jaw, the neck, the left cheek, the right forearm, the right side of the head and the right cheek. The last bullet tunneled to his spine.

After the autopsy, Matix"s eyes were donated to science.

A trail of bloodstains proved that Michael Platt murdered the two agents. He used a Ruger Mini-14 rifle, serial number 184-95273. The high-speed slugs can make an entry wound scarcely a quarter-inch in diameter and an exit wound as big as a fist.

In barely two minutes more than 100 shots ripped through the South Dade neighborhood. Forty of those came from the Ruger.

Grogan"s 9mm Smith & Wesson had been fired nine times and Dove"s had been fired 20, which meant the young agent had reloaded during the fight.

Agent Ron Reisner"s gun had been shot six times, while agent Gilbert Orrantia"s .357 had been fired 12 times. Badly injured, agent Edmundo Mireles had fired a 12-gauge shotgun five times, then heroically staggered to the car in which Matix and Platt were trying to escape. There Mireles shot them both fatally with his . 357 revolver.

Investigators did their best to reconstruct the movements-who stood where, who shot whom, who died first-but on paper it"s impossible to describe the ch.o.r.eography of terror that morning.

What"s obvious is that the shootings didn"t happen the way they do on TV shows; there was no script. Nor were the wanted men mere paper silhouettes on the range at Quantico. Probably all the firearms training in the world wouldn"t have prepared the FBI agents for the likes of Michael Platt.

They shot him only moments after he slithered from his stolen Monte Carlo and took aim. He was. .h.i.t again and again, yet he did not fall. Somehow, through an animal reserve of adrenalin or pure fury, Platt kept darting and bobbing and firing the Ruger a.s.sault rifle.

In all, seven agents went down in his sights.

A sad irony emerges from the ballistic tests. Of the first bullets that Platt absorbed, the most deadly came from the gun of agent Gerald Dove. The shot exploded Platt"s right lung-a killing wound, but it didn"t even slow him down. He simply ducked around the car, ambushed Dove and Grogan, and kept on shooting.

To the agents, Platt must have seemed a spectral force.

The man was. .h.i.t 12 times: once in the forehead, twice in the right arm and chest, once in the right forearm, once in the upper chest 12 inches below the head, once in the right shoulder, once in the thigh, and multiple times in both feet from shotgun blasts.

Like his partner, Platt died with one of Mireles" bullets in his spine. Fifth cervical vertebra.

That was the one that stopped him. Platt and Matix and their weapons were dragged from Grogan"s car. A policeman reached into the driver"s side, slipped the gearshift to park and turned off the key. Finally it was over.

Machine-gun shortage rattles NRA September 7, 1986 Some deeply disturbing news from our ever-vigilant friends at the National Rifle a.s.sociation: America is in the throes of a serious machine-gun shortage. Hard to believe, but apparently true. If you"ve tried to buy a new machine gun lately or just trade in that rusty old family favorite, you got quite a shock.

That darned liberal Congress has pa.s.sed a law banning the sale of all new machine guns. Incredibly, President Reagan signed it. The emasculatory effect was to limit the number of machine guns in nationwide circulation to a measly 127,000, most of which are probably in Hialeah. The NRA, whose aim is to guarantee enough guns for every maniac in the country, has launched a new lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to repeal the machine-gun legislation. The effort couldn"t be more timely, following the recent slaughter of 14 innocent persons in Oklahoma by a lunatic using three handguns. To think he could have done the whole job with a single Thompson.

Many of you probably hadn"t heard about the machine-gun shortage until now, but South Floridians have a special stake in solving the problem.

In recent times the machine gun has become a vibrant and inextricable part of our culture, lending spice and spontaneity to an otherwise dreary drug scene. Thanks to films such as Scarface and TV programs such as Miami Vice, the Ingram MAC-10 is now as indelible a part of South Florida"s image as the palm tree. Are we going to sit still while a bunch of pencil-necks in Washington spoil it? Think of tradition. Remember how the legendary El Loco (the original El Loco-Dade County is probably the only place with more than one) hung from a speeding sedan on the Turnpike and fired away at a drug rival. And who could forget the photograph of the Colombian traveler machine-gunned to death in his wheelchair at Miami International.

Miami just wouldn"t be the same without its rat-tat-tat.

True, plenty of machine guns are still out on the streets, but they"re getting worn out and junky. We all know what happens when you leave your Gustav M45 lying in the backyard-one lousy rainstorm and the muzzle corrodes, the trigger starts to jam, you name it.

The urgent need for new guns was ill.u.s.trated a few days ago when police raided a crack house in Broward County. Along with cocaine and the usual cache of handguns, two machine guns were seized in the arrest. Believe me, these were the worst looking machine guns you ever saw; they might as well have been held together with paper clips and masking tape.

I"m sure the c.o.ke dealers were embarra.s.sed to be caught with such decrepit weapons, but what choice did they have? Thanks to Congress, no new ones are being produced for the U.S. market. They can blame Rep. Larry Smith of Hollywood, who wrote the offending law. Smith says there"s no good reason for private citizens to have machine guns, and challenges the gun lobby to come up with any legitimate uses for the deadly automatic weapon. An obvious answer is hunting. What could match the thrill of bringing down a buck with 96 rounds of Parabellum fire at 100 meters? Saves you the trouble of skinning it, too.

So you"re not a sportsman? Fine. The machine gun is still an invaluable urban companion. Next time some jerk sneaks in and steals your parking s.p.a.ce, feed him a MAC-10 Popsicle and just watch how fast he backs out. Finally, try to imagine what would add more excitement and variety to a police officer"s day than knowing that any two-bit creep could have a loaded Tommy gun under his front seat.

So as the NRA pursues its latest quest, all South Florida awaits the day when it"s once again possible to gift wrap a shiny new Uzi for that someone special. Maybe even in time for Christmas.

Miami, a city beset by gun problems? Read on!

March 7, 1988 Tarnished Image Alert: Miami officials are concerned that a new book contains outdated information that gives a wrong impression about the area.

The book, due out in May, is called Cities of Opportunity. It lists 42. American cities that are promising and exciting places for young people to relocate. Miami makes the list.

Sounds very positive, except for one glitch. The author, John Tepper Marlin, dares to suggest that we"ve got a little gun problem down here in South Florida. Now, where would he get a crazy idea like that?

In particular, he mentions the infamous loophole in the state"s new handgun law that made it legal to walk around with a six-shooter on your hip. That part of the law was hastily fixed, but not before Marlin had already sent off his ma.n.u.script.

The city had a chance to point out this mistake, but was two months late in replying to Marlin"s publisher. Consequently, the gun stuff stays in the book.

Some complain that it"s not fair to bring up the Dodge City slur again, and fear that the book will present a distorted view of how safe it is to live down here.

If only Mr. Marlin had taken the time to visit in the last week or so, he would have gone back to his typewriter with a completely different outlook about guns in South Florida.

These are some of the stories he would have seen on TV, or read in the papers: * Someone with an automatic weapon opened fire from a pa.s.sing car at teenagers on a street corner in Coconut Grove. Three youths, including two high-school football stars, were wounded in the apparently random attack.

* An ex-con robber with a violent past pulled a 9 mm Smith & Wesson on a Miami cabbie, who quickly shot him to death with a Colt .45, one of two pistols he was carrying in his taxi under a new concealed-weapons permit.

* A University of Miami law school graduate named Irv Ribler was shot to death while driving down 1-95 in North Broward. Police believe the murder stemmed from a brief traffic altercation with strangers.

* In Liberty City, three men were shot on the street when somebody in a white Camaro or Firebird opened fire with a shotgun. As the car roared off, the gunmen kept shooting at bystanders, and wounded a 19-year-old woman.

* As her children watched, a woman upset over a custody battle shot her ex-husband to death with a pistol in the parking lot of Dade"s main juvenile court.

* Four friends out cruising in North Miami decided to play Russian roulette with a .38-caliber pistol. Jose Cotto, age 14, lost. He was the third teenager to die this way in Dade County since January.

* Police arrested two men for the robbery-slaying nine months ago of a children"s ice-cream vendor near Kelsey Pharr Elementary School. Authorities noted that this murder was not related to the robbery-shooting of another ice-cream vendor near the same school in January.

* A former member of the Yahweh religious sect pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two tenants who refused to leave an Opalocka apartment when the Yahwehs tried to evict them.

* In Fort Lauderdale, a Canadian tourist was shot to death in his beachfront hotel room while Spring Breakers partied along The Strip.

* Burglars who broke into a Northwest Dade home stole a 9mm handgun, an Uzi semiautomatic machine gun, a .32-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Beretta of unspecified caliber.

This is only a recent sampler. Yet, anyone can plainly see that not one of these incidents resulted from so-called "loopholes" in Florida"s firearms laws.

So maybe next time a Mr. Smartypants Liberal wants to write a book, he"ll buckle down and do his homework.

A gun problem? Us? What an imagination, this guy.

Legislators, we"re dying for gun law April 29, 1988 So the madness goes on.

Another policeman falls, while the clowns in Tallaha.s.see argue about whether Key lime or sweet potato should be the state pie. Earlier in the week, they haggled intently over the selection of a state sand.

But don"t worry. The true sweat and toil for this legislative session has been saved for the burning issue of repealing a motorcycle helmet law.

Just amazing.

How many cops do we have to lose before somebody up there gets some guts?

How many funerals will it take? How many manhunts? How many pictures of anguished relatives rushing into hospital emergency rooms?

Last year, the Legislature sent a lenient new message about handguns, and this year we got it. The homicide rate is way up, and more cops are down.

Let"s hear it for some of the const.i.tutional champions in the Legislature who gave us these murderous laws: Larry Plummer, John Hill and the two Lehtinens; Don Childers of West Palm Beach; Jim Scott and Tom Gustafson of Fort Lauderdale; Arnhilda Gonzalez-Quevedo of Coral Gables; Ron Saunders of Key West; Ray Liberti ofWest Palm Beach; Anne Mackenzie and Debby Sanderson of Fort Lauderdale; Luis Morse, John Cosgrove, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Javier Souto of Miami; Roberto Casas of Hialeah; Robert Starks of Homestead; and our very own NRA poster boy, Al Gutman.

Hope to see all of you dropping by Jackson Hospital to wish Officer James Hayden a speedy recovery.

The madness is as uncivilized as it is intolerable. We are past the point of scaring off tourists; we"re scaring off good cops. Anyone in his right mind would think twice about putting on a badge in a state that abides such bloodletting.

Officer Hayden was wounded during a routine traffic stop on a busy street-four weeks to the day after fellow officer Victor Estefan was murdered under similar circ.u.mstances. In the last month, three Miami policemen and a state trooper have been shot by motorists.

I would not blame Chief Clarence d.i.c.kson for telling his officers to treat every traffic violator as a potential killer; to approach every car with guns drawn, antic.i.p.ating another freak with a Smith & Wesson in his lap. Why not? This is the new code of the street.

Finally, the mayor is talking about a trip to the capital to discuss the gun law. He ought to charter a plane and take a delegation in blue. All of us react more viscerally to the shooting of a law enforcement officer, and we should. If the police aren"t safe, n.o.body is. Yet, at the same time, we shouldn"t forget the daily blood bath that doesn"t make the front page.

A week ago, J. D. Davis was killed in his front yard when he was. .h.i.t by a stray bullet from a neighborhood crack dispute. Davis wasn"t a cop; he was just an innocent guy with a wife and kids. He could have been your husband, your brother, your son, your father.

Some people say that it"s already too late; that once a society arms itself as prolifically as South Florida, there is no disarming it. To some extent, this is true. Once the guns are sold, they only come back as police evidence in robberies, murders, suicides. Even then, they don"t always come back.

A few days ago, police say, a man drove out to a South Dade tomato field and killed his wife with a gmm handgun, then shot himself. By the time officers reached the scene, a pa.s.serby had already stolen the dead man"s gun.

The answer to this madness is not acceptance, and it"s certainly not more handguns. A beginning would be a new set of laws, starting with one that makes it illegal to have a pistol in your car, period.

If you had met Jim Hayden"s a.s.sailant under more casual circ.u.mstances and asked about the handgun in his Malibu, he probably would have told you he was carrying it for protection. He would have told you it was his right, just check the law.

Victor Estefan"s killer could have given you the same line.

And G.o.d help you if you disagreed.

New NRA ad misses the mark May 23, 1988 The National Rifle a.s.sociation has kicked off a frantic counteroffen-sive in Florida with new radio commercials designed to scare every law-abiding citizen into buying a handgun.

Displaying its usual disregard for facts, the NRA a.s.serts that strict handgun laws will punish only the innocent, because criminals don"t apply for gun permits.

Wrong. In Dade County, one out of 15 applicants for a new concealed-weapons license has a felony arrest record. Since the new laws took effect, violent drug dealers, home invasion robbers and mental defectives have gotten legal gun permits-despite the NRA"s a.s.surance that no such thing could happen.

Under fire from angry const.i.tuents, legislators are fumbling around with a sham response-a whopping three-day waiting period. This won"t accomplish anything, except to allow these wimps to slink home from Tallaha.s.see and claim credit for a "tougher" gun law.

Meanwhile, it"s been another typical week for handguns in South Florida. A 10-year-old Richmond Heights boy, upset over a bad school performance report, killed himself with a .357 found under his parents" bed. In Coral Springs, an investment counselor shot an ex-employee four times and then himself over a labor grievance.

The NRA ads imply that a pistol in the nightstand is all that stands between a free society and a criminal siege. Fear sells, and n.o.body sells it better than the NRA.

If you really want to feel safe and secure, consider the number of handguns that enter the criminal underworld every day. The NRA seldom confronts the issue of where these guns come from-the guns used to shoot at cops and store clerks and cashiers.

Guess where they come from. A sample from the last three weeks: A .45-caliber handgun was stolen from a truck parked outside the Sunshine Medical Center on Southwest 72nd Street.

A .357 magnum was stolen from a man who was attacked by three a.s.sailants in West Dade.

A .38-caliber revolver was stolen out of a Chevy Blazer parked in the 24700 block of Southwest 87th Avenue.

A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson was stolen from an apartment on the 8400 block of Southwest 107th Avenue.

A thief who stole a 1987 Ford Bronco on Southwest 63rd Street also got a .357, which had been left in the truck.

A 9mm handgun was stolen from the glove box of a Buick parked at Westchester Hospital.

A thief who stole a Ford pickup on Northwest 109th Street also got a .38-caliber pistol and .22-caliber handgun, both of which had been left in the truck.

A .38 was stolen from a parked car in the 1100 block of Northwest 128th Street.

A 12-gauge shotgun and a .357 Smith & Wesson were stolen from a home in the 16000 block of Northwest 45th Avenue.

A .38 Smith & Wesson was stolen from under a mattress inside a house trailer in the 6000 block of Southwest Eighth Street.

A .22-caliber semiautomatic Beretta was stolen from a diesel repair shop on Okeechobee Road.