Ayoob: "RUN AND GUN: THE OSCAR PLASENCIA INCIDENT"

An article from Massad Ayoob discussing a 2011 shootout in Miami that left two officers dead and nearly ended in tragedy for two other officers. The basic situation was that four detectives--Amanda Haworth, Roger Castillo, Diedre Beecher and Oscar Plasencia--where looking for one Johnny Simms, wanted for murder. The plan was to visit the homes of the suspect’s mother and last known girlfriend, and try to learn information about Simms' whereabouts and convince the women to call the police if they saw Simms.

     They arrived at the home of Sims' mother, only a short distance from the girlfriend's place, where the two female detectives, Haworth and Beecher, went to the front door and the two men, Castillo and Plasencia, split and went around to the different sides of the home in case Simms was there and decided to leave out the back. All the officers were openly wearing their ballistic vests.

     Simms was, in fact, at his mother's home and heard Haworth and Beecher speaking with his mother. Haworth radioed that Simms was in the home and called for the two male officers to enter the house. Suddenly, Simms burst out of a bedroom, shooting Haworth in the head and killing her. He then shot at Castillo, near the door, also killing him. Beecher fell backwards out the front door, and narrowly avoided getting shot. Plasencia rounded the corner in time to see Beecher falling out the door and followed by Simms. There was an exchange of gun fire between Plasencia and Simms that left Simms dead.

     As Ayoob describes it, the entire affair from the time Haworth radioed the two male officers to when Simms was killed outside by Plasencia was only 17 seconds. Ayoob notes that Simms had aimed high when shooting at all of the officers, and suggests that he was trying for head shots because he saw their ballistic vests.

    The article goes on to discuss the aftermath, including Plasencia's dealing with survival guilt, and discusses some of the tactical decisions made in the event.