Metro-Dade police officer Joseph Martin, 28, a four-year veteran, was shot and killed on April 27, 1990, by a passenger of a car he and his partner had stopped in a residential neighborhood in N. Miami. The fatal shooting marked the second time in 18 months that the Metro-Dade Police Department suffered a tragic loss in the middle of the night on the streets of Northeast Dade. Metro officers Richard Boles and David Strzalkowski were killed with their own guns after a struggle with recent parolee Charlie Street on Nov. 28, 1988.
Martin and his partner, Carlos Crespo, were working the 11:00PM to 7:00AM shift out of the Northeast (Intracoastal) Metro-Dade police station at 156th St. and Biscayne Blvd. and were patrolling the area of Washington Park in N. Miami Beach looking for a suspected burglar who was reported to be fleeing on foot. At 4:00AM the two officers saw what they considered to be a suspicious vehicle.
The 1989 Chrysler LeBaron convertible rental car was occupied by three males and was in a residential neighborhood at 4:00AM. They thought the drivers were either lost tourists or driving a stolen car. Crespo (according to later testimony) then looked at the driver's eyes and said "he was surprised to see us. His eyes went as big as apples." The officers then realized they "had one" and began to follow the Chrysler for several blocks while they radioed in the car's tag numbers. The driver of the Chrysler drove erratically stopping briefly twice only to pull back on the road.
The officers turned on their red flashing light to signal the driver to pull over. When the car finally stopped---at N.E. 151 St. and 13 Ave. in N. Miami---the partners followed departmental procedure. Officer Martin got out of the driver side of the marked patrol car with his gun holstered and walked toward the back of the Chrysler while his partner stood at the driver's side of the police car. Departmental policy did not allow officers making a traffic stop to approach a car with gun in hand as the sight of an approaching officer with gun in hand would be unnerving to the public.
The officers told the driver to get out of the car. The driver did so with his hands up shouting, "Don't kill me. Don't kill me." The area was dimly lit.
Prosecutors would later tell a jury that officer Martin was "ambushed." The officers were not aware that the car was stolen or that the three occupants of the car had been on a 3-day crime spree and were at that moment fleeing from a burglary of a second floor hotel room (the Holiday Inn Newport Pier Resort at 16701 N.E. Collins) in Miami Beach. The three occupants were Michael Allen Griffin, 20, of N. Miami who had been released from a second jail term only six weeks earlier; Samuel Geraldo Velez, 19, and Jonathan Nicholas Tarallo, 19. The three men shared an apartment in Miami Beach.
The trio began the crime spree by stealing the Chrysler, an Avis rental car, from a hotel parking lot. The next day they robbed a lawyer and his girlfriend in Hollywood at gunpoint and took a .357 Magnum Ruger (the murder weapon), jewelry and cash. Then the following night they burglarized the hotel room in Miami Beach. The trio were traveling west on 163rd St. as they fled the burglary when they saw a number of police cars and decided to go through a residential neighborhood to avoid the police. It was in this neighborhood that the Chrysler was spotted by officers Martin and Crespo.
Tarallo was driving the car, Griffin was in the front passenger seat and Velez was lying down in the backseat talking to his girlfriend on a cellular phone stolen in the hotel burglary. Tarallo and Velez had no prior record and had only met Griffin two weeks earlier shortly after he was released from jail. Tarallo and Velez later claimed at trial that they both wanted to stop the Chrysler when signalled to do so by the patrol car and urged Griffin to throw the gun out the window. Tarallo claimed that when he attempted to stop the car, Griffin took the wheel and hit the accelerator. Tarallo regained control of the steering wheel and stopped the vehicle.
Griffin told his two companions, "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him, I'm not going back to jail." Griffin then jumped out of the car with gun in hand and began firing at Martin. One bullet hit Martin in the chest and lodged in his protective vest. As Martin collapsed forward a second shot fired by Griffin struck him in the neck and exited his rib cage. Officer Martin drew his weapon and fired at his assailant. He did not fall but attempted to run back toward the police car.
Griffin then turned his gun on Officer Crispo. Crispo returned the fire. The ensuing "shoot-out" with the two officers and Griffin involved 21 shots with Crispo firing 9 shots from his 9mm automatic pistol at Griffin, Griffin firing 6 shots from his .357 Magnum Ruger at the two officers and Martin firing 6 shots at Griffin. Crispo was not hit but Griffin was shot in the arm.
As officer Martin attempted to run back to the patrol car he "locked his eyes onto Crespo." "He wasn't scared, a little bit surprised," Crespo remembered, "But he was telling me he couldn't help me and I was on my own. He was dying."
Shortly before or during the shootout Tarallo and Velez had gotten out of the car. During the shootout Velez tried to crawl away into nearby bushes but was forced to surrender along with Tarallo. Both were handcuffed by officer Crespo. Griffin, now wounded and bleeding, jumped back into the Chrysler and attempted to flee.
At this point a backup officer, Luis Velazquez, arrived on the scene and gave chase to the fleeing car while calling for backups. Crespo then went to the aid of his partner who had "collapsed near the back of their green-and-white car in a pool of blood." While waiting for medical rescue, Crespo (later testified) that he told his partner "not to quit.....fight for the kids, for his wife. I told him I loved him."
Realizing he could not escape in the Chrysler, Griffin jumped out of the moving car (which crashed at the edge of Oak Grove Park), and attempted to flee on foot. He approached one house and banged on the door shouting that he had been wounded and needed help. However, the homeowner called 911 and Griffin ran away.
Police officers from Metro, N. Miami, and N. Miami Beach converged on the area in a massive hunt for the escaped killer. A helicopter with a searchlight and police dogs joined the hunt. After a one-hour search Griffin was found by two police dogs hiding under a car in a driveway near the corner of N.E. 8th Ave. and 157 Terr. (five blocks from the shooting). When discovered Griffin refused to come out but was then bitten and drug out by one of the dogs.
Mark Russell, the resident of the house, had been earlier awakened by the sound of gunshots and had turned on his police scanner. He heard Crespo talking with the dispatcher and realized that the police were searching for a cop-killer. He had listened to the scanner for an hour when he realized that the search had ended in his front yard. He watched as the fugitive was drug from beneath his girlfriend's car in the driveway by a German Shepherd.
Officer Martin was placed in the back seat of the patrol car while awaiting medical rescue. But with every breath he took he was swallowing blood and blood seeped into his lone working lung. It appears that he died before he could be evacuated. However, a valiant effort to save him was made. A rescue helicopter was dispatched to the parking lot of the Holy Family Catholic Church at Northeast 145th St. and 12th Ave. since it could not land at the site of the shooting.
Martin was rushed to the helicopter and evacuated to Jackson Memorial Hospital. He had no vital signs upon admission at the Jackson Emergency Ward and efforts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at 4:59A.M. His cause of death was listed as "gunshot wound of neck and chest."