Michael lee platt biography

Deadly gun battle between FBI agents and criminals

The 1986 FBI Miami shootout occurred on April 11, 1986, in Miami-Dade County, Florida, U.S. (the specific area was incorporated as Pinecrest in 1996), when a small group of field agents for the FBI attempted to apprehend William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt, who were suspected of committing a series of violent crimes in and around the Miami metropolitan area.

Although they had partially surrounded the suspects after maneuvering them off a local road, the agents involved quickly found their firepower was outmatched by the weapons which Matix and Platt had in their vehicle. During the gun battle which ensued, Platt in particular was able to repeatedly return fire despite sustaining multiple hits. Two Special Agents died from their wounds, while five other agents were injured by gunfire. The shootout ended when both Matix and Platt were killed.

The incident is infamous as one of the most violent episodes in the history of the FBI and is often studied in law enforcement training. The scale of the shootout led to the introduction of more effective handguns, primarily switching from revolvers to semi-automatics, in the FBI and many police departments around the United States.

Background

Michael Lee Platt (February 3, 1954 – April 11, 1986) and William Russell Matix (June 25, 1951 – April 11, 1986) met while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Matix first served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1969 to 1972, working as a cook (MOS 3371) in the officers' mess, serving in Hawaii and Okinawa from April 1970 to March 1971 and April 1971 to March 1972 respectively. He was honorably discharged July 7, 1972, achieving the rank of Sergeant. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on August 10, 1973, serving with the military police under the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He served as a Military Police Officer and Squad Leader; Guard Supervisor for th

This article originally appeared in RECOIL Issue 39

Photos by FBI, Miami-Dade Police Department

If any of the FBI field agents in Miami on that pleasant April morning sensed what was about to happen, they haven’t said so publicly. Acting on a hunch, they picked this particular day to stage a bank stakeout, watching for a pair of unidentified bad guys in a stolen Monte Carlo on the off chance they’d show up. They weren’t looking for a gunfight, particularly not one of the deadliest days in the FBI’s history. But that’s what they got.

The morning in question was April 11, 1986 in a duplex driveway in Miami, Florida. Make that a crowded driveway: by the end, the fight involved two bad guys with two .357 Magnum revolvers, a Ruger Mini-14, and a shotgun, plus eight good guys with five revolvers, three pistols, and two shotguns.

By 9:45 a.m. two bank robbers and two agents were dead, five agents had been seriously injured, and everything the FBI knew about arming agents and shooting in and around cars was called into question. The event sparked near-immediate changes to how the Bureau arms and trains every agent from the desk guys to SWAT agents, with local police forces nationwide following their lead.

The Miami Shootout, as the now notorious event has come to be known, demonstrated with lethal accuracy just how behind the weapons and tactics curve the FBI was in 1986. And although the gunfight has now been parsed, dissected, and examined in law enforcement classrooms for decades, one overwhelming truth emerges: It never really had to happen to begin with.

The Players
Army buddies Michael Platt and William Matix had a lot in common. Both of their wives died under suspicious circumstances, both seemed fairly normal to their Florida friends and neighbors, and neither had a criminal record.

It wasn’t until after the duo had killed a man for his car, seriously injured a second man while stealing his black 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and

The Federal Bureau of Investigation honors its fallen on a Wall of Honor at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at field offices around the country. As of 2020, 81 agents and employees who lost their lives in the line of duty had been memorialized.

Two more names soon will be added to the wall in the aftermath of the Feb. 2 shootout in Sunrise that claimed the lives of two FBI agents—Daniel Alfin, 36; and Laura Schwartzenberger, 43—and wounded three others. The incident with a lone gunman, who was being served a court-ordered search warrant for a case involving violent crimes against children, was described as the most violent in FBI history since another South Florida shootout.

That incident, 35 years ago this month, occurred on a residential street behind a shopping center in a part of Miami-Dade County known for its impeccably manicured lawns, grand homes and comfortable level of privacy and safety.

It took only five minutes to set in motion events that would change the South Florida landscape—and forever alter tactics at the FBI and for law enforcement throughout the nation. Similar to the deadly shootout in Sunrise, this one also started early one morning.

Ready and Waiting

April 11, 1986.

Unknown to residents of what was then an unincorporated portion of Miami-Dade County, one of the most well-traveled roads in the area was teeming with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Early that morning, Special Agent Gordon McNeill of the Miami FBI, supervisor of a task force intent on stopping a six-month spree of armed bank and armored car robberies, had dispersed 14 agents in 10 unmarked cars to stake out agreed-upon areas covering a nearly six-mile stretch of South Dixie Highway.

The day before, McNeill told fellow Special Agent Benjamin Grogan that he had a hunch.

McNeill wanted his teams in place by 9 a.m.—0900 hours, in FBI speak—on that Friday. Over the course of successful and botched robberies since October 1985, two suspects desc

Partners in Crime

William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt are the main antagonists of the 1988 film In The Line Of Duty: The FBI Murders which was based on the 1986 Miami shootout. They are two of the most infamous criminals in FBI history; being the perpetrators of a shootout that led to the death of two FBI agents and wounded five others in what is still to this day the deadliest shootout