by Lee Butcher
The situation hadn’t improved for Paula and Chino in June 2001. They were strapped for money, he wouldn’t work, and she was in a deep depression. Once, she had gone to the ER at St. Joseph’s Hospital and told nurses that her throat hurt because she had swallowed glass.
The ER personnel who first looked at her didn’t find anything wrong with her throat, except that it was inflamed. On her medical chart they noted that “the patient seems agitated.” Further examinations revealed no evidence of glass in Paula’s throat. The second chart also noted her agitation and anxiety.
Paula didn’t know it, but people who suffer from battered spouse syndrome (BSS) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently “invent” physical problems to mask the real one. Psychologically, they aren’t able to recognize what is actually causing problems for them and will create something that might have similar symptoms. Paula’s complaint of feeling like she had swallowed glass is consistent with how a person with either disorder might describe being consistently choked.
While they were struggling to find enough money, Chino decided that he wanted a gun. He didn’t allow Paula to have visitors, and when she mentioned that someone Chino knew had dropped by the apartment, he was angry, even though Paula hadn’t let him in.
“When he doesn’t see my truck in the parking lot, he knows I’m not home,” Chino said. “We should get a gun so you can protect yourself.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Paula said. “He didn’t try to force himself into the house or anything.”
Chino was adamant. “No. You’re going to get a gun.”
Chino liked to buy things in Paula’s name whenever possible. That way, nothing could be traced to him. He liked flying under the radar. His juvenile record of petty crimes had been expunged when he became an adult, and Chino could have purchased the gun himself. In Florida it’s so easy to get guns that even hard-core career criminals have no problem buying military assault rifles, such as AK-47s.
Chino parked outside the University Gun and Pawn, on East Fletcher Avenue. He told Paula to buy the gun, but he would pick it out. Paula wasn’t worried about Chino having a gun because he seemed excited by the idea and he was less likely to hit her when he felt good.
Paula thought he would get a “little gun,” like some handguns she had seen, but Chino had different ideas. He rejected those guns immediately and asked for something with more firepower.
“It’s dangerous out there,” Chino told the salesman. “There are a lot of bad guys.”
The salesman agreed and brought out a MAC-11, a submachine gun that wasn’t made for hunting or sport. The gun was developed by Military Armament Corporation for military forces waging urban warfare. The MAC-11 is a sinister-looking weapon, similar in appearance to the Israeli Uzi submachine pistol that is often seen on television shows and in the movies. It is only 460 millimeters in length when the stock is open and 258 millimeters with the stock folded. The gun can be hidden under a jacket. The gun has the capacity to fire an astonishing sixteen hundred rounds a minute, making it a deadly killing machine. It uses 9-millimeter ammunition and the magazine holds thirty-two rounds.
Chino’s eyes lit up. “That’s a nice gun,” Chino told Paula. “It’s a good price. Get it.”
“Okay.”
Paula gave the salesman a $100 deposit to hold the gun. No license permits or certificate of training is needed to buy a gun in the United States. Florida and a few other states require that three days pass from the purchase of a gun until the new owner can pick it up. The waiting period is sometimes called a “cooling-off” period to help prevent crimes of passion. A background check is supposed to be conducted during this time to see if the buyer has a criminal record, but the check is lax and sometimes even ignored. Gun dealers find ways around it.
From September 13, 1994, until September 1, 2004, the MAC-11 that Chino and Paula bought could not have been obtained legally in the United States. President Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act banning the sale of such weapons—except for police or military use. President Bush allowed the act to lapse in 2004. Now these guns are available to anyone who can pay for them. The MAC-11 was one type of gun found in the armory of the Branch Davidians after the Waco, Texas, standoff on February 28, 1993, which resulted in the deaths of four ATF agents and the wounding of sixteen others by gunfire. Every major police organization in the nation supports a ban on the sale of such weapons.
On June 2, 2001—the third day after Paula made the deposit on the gun—Chino left money for her to pay the balance. He telephoned later to see if she had it.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Go pick it up.”
Then he gave her specific directions on how to do it. For some reason, he even wanted her to drive a certain route. She was to take an expressway and get off at Fletcher to get to the pawnshop. Paula didn’t ask questions. She took the money from a kitchen drawer, paid for the gun, signed the papers, and went home with the MAC-11.
Chino called a little later. “Have you got it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Did you get bullets?”
Paula was surprised. “Don’t they come already in there?”
Chino told her to check the magazine. She did and the magazine was empty.
“Go back and buy some bullets.”
The gun got Chino so excited that he wanted to take pictures. Paula took a picture of him with Ashley on his lap with her hand touching the gun and his finger on the trigger. Paula put on lip gloss, pulled her hair back, and gave a big smile as Chino took a snapshot of her with the gun.
Now that he had a submachine gun, Chino was happier. He had the means to “take what he wanted” from the society he hated so much.
Chapter 8
Detective Roberto Batista had Friday off and was taking his time about starting the day until his radio beeper went off and he heard that there had been a bank robbery and that an officer was down. It was one of the worst scenarios he could imagine. He knew that the suspects were holed up at the Crossings apartments, not far from his South Tampa home, and that there might be a hostage. He got dressed and was at the crime scene in about fifteen minutes.
A twenty-three-year veteran of the Tampa Police Department, Batista was a top hostage negotiator on the tactical response team, which also included a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team. Batista would try to resolve the situation without further bloodshed. He would try to establish rapport with the suspect so they could have a conversation. During this time he would try to convince him that there was a better way to end this than with a gunfight. He wanted to save the lives of the hostages, but his primary focus was the safety of the hostage and police officers who had contained the suspects.
Batista always went into a negotiation feeling optimistic. You had to, if you wanted to be effective. He entered a negotiation with the belief that he could get everybody out alive. He didn’t care what a suspect had done, that would all be sorted out later by the criminal justice system. Batista was there to help, not to judge or condemn.
Batista had negotiated with a cop killer on one other occasion. In 1998, a thirty-year-old ex-convict named Hank Earl Carr and his girlfriend took their four-year-old son to a fire station emergency room. The child’s face was blown off. Carr initially explained that his son was dragging the gun around and that it accidentally discharged when he yelled at his son to put it down. That started the wildest, bloodiest day in the history of Florida law enforcement.
Carr, who lived in Brookville, a small town not far from Tampa, had a record stretching from 1986, which included burglary, domestic violence, assault, grand larceny, possession of cocaine, and resisting an officer with violence. Two detectives questioned him about his son’s shooting and decided they should take him to headquarters. Once Carr was sitting in the backseat, he managed to slip out of his handcuffs and stripped a gun away from one of the detectives. He shot both of them to death, then highjacked a truck at gu
npoint, and fled. A rookie state trooper tried to stop him and Carr shot and killed him.
With more than two hundred police officers in pursuit, Carr tried to escape, reaching speeds of more than ninety miles per hour in the stolen truck. He told a radio talk show later, “Blew my tires out ninety miles an hour. I finally got the car on the road. I was hit in the ass, a bullet through the truck. I’m bleeding bad.”
He pulled into a gas station and took the young female attendant hostage. In an odd twist, a local radio station telephoned him, and a radio personality conducted most of the negotiations. Batista was in Tampa when the police officer negotiating with Carr called. Batista talked with Carr, who demanded to see his wife. The Tampa detective found her and they flew to the hostage scene in a helicopter. After talking with his wife, Carr released the hostage, then blew his head off while the SWAT team fired tear gas into the building and charged inside.
The police didn’t get to take Carr alive, but the negotiation was a success because no other lives were lost. Saving as many lives as possible and getting Chino and Paula to surrender were Batista’s goals.
When he pulled up to the Crossings, he saw total chaos. Cops were everywhere. They were taking up positions to contain the subjects and patrol cars blocked off streets to and from the apartments. Batista drove to the east side of the apartments and asked some cops where the command post was. None had been set up yet, but they told him it would be in another area. Batista drove around and pulled up to another patrol car barricade, got out, and walked over in the sweltering Florida heat.
Officer Terry Mims walked up to him, carrying a cell phone. He handed the phone to Batista.
“What’s going on?” Batista asked. He didn’t know anything except that there had been a bank robbery and that an officer had been shot. He had few facts, and didn’t know the condition of the officer who was shot.
“I have the suspect right here,” Mims said. “Here you go.”
Batista took the phone. “What’s his name?”
“His name is Chino.”
Batista took the phone, thinking, Well, I’m a negotiator, so even though I don’t know anything, I’m gonna talk. He got on the phone and immediately started speaking.
“Chino, this is Detective Batista. I’m here to talk and resolve the situation. See what’s going on.”
As Batista tried to get Chino to talk, he realized that he was standing in the middle of the street, almost directly in front of the apartment complex, where he could be shot. He knew the first thing he had to do was find cover. Chino had shot one cop—what was another one to him?
Batista walked over to a pickup truck, which happened to belong to Chino’s mother, and crouched behind it. “Let’s get down on our knees,” he said to Mims. “At least we’ll have some cover.”
Talking with Chino, Batista was surprised at how calm he was. He was a lot calmer than the detective thought he should have been, considering the circumstances. Chino didn’t seem to be the least bit agitated. He knew he had shot a police officer, and he didn’t know whether the officer was dead or alive. Neither did Batista.
“She’s still alive, Chino.” So far as Batista knew, Lois was still alive. He hadn’t received much official information about anything, including Chino and Paula. At that point he wasn’t even sure if a third man, said to be a hostage, was being held against his will or not. There was some doubt in Detective Gene Black’s mind. Black and Batista had been looking for a robbery team, consisting of a black male and a Hispanic male, who had been working the area.
“You shot the officer,” Batista told Chino. “She’s in critical condition, but she’s still alive. We can get past this, Chino. She’s going to be okay.”
Chino said he wanted to think about it.
“You take your time, and talk it over with Paula, think about it,” Batista said. “Then we’ll talk some more and get this resolved. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”
The negotiator broke the connection and thought he better find a more ideal command center. He looked around and saw a single-story house almost directly across the street from where Chino and Paula had barricaded themselves. That would do just fine. Batista knocked on the door and asked for permission to use the house for the police command headquarters. The owners gave him permission, and in a short time he was back on the line with Chino.
While Batista talked with Chino, the police were getting organized. A SWAT team had deployed and established a field headquarters. The massive police force surrounding the building had lost its feeling of chaos and had taken on a sense of order and control. Batista still had the cell phone and discovered that it belonged to Chino’s mother. She had called Chino to tell him he was wanted by the police. When Mims discovered what was going on, he confiscated the telephone and gave it to Batista.
Batista used what time he could to find out as much as he could. He had gone in cold, not knowing much of anything. He was still pretty much in the dark when he called Chino back. What he wanted to do was keep Chino calm and get as much information from him as he could, have the hostage released, and get Chino and Paula out alive.
The negotiator fished for ways to establish rapport with Chino. They were both Hispanic, but they had totally different perspectives on how the world worked. He discovered that Chino had a chip the size of a two-by-four on his shoulder, and he blamed everyone but himself for his problems. That was something Batista was seeing more often; no one wanted to take responsibility for what they did. It was always somebody else’s fault, not theirs.
Lissette Santiago had just arrived at the Ashford apartments when she received a telephone call from her boss, Karen Whitney.
“Where’s Chino?” Whitney asked.
“I dropped him off at the apartment.”
“Well, the cops are looking for him.”
Lissette was confused after the short conversation. Why would the cops be looking for Chino? She was pondering this when, just a few seconds later, the telephone rang again. Whitney was back on the line.
“Chino robbed a bank,” Whitney said. “He used your car (the SUV). He parked it at the Regency and it’s steaming hot.”
Lissette grabbed Ashley and raced to her truck and headed toward the Crossings to see Chino. She was almost there when she spotted a cop car and a police officer, who waved her to pull over.
“You can’t go in there,” he told her. “You have to leave now.”
“What’s going on?”
He didn’t tell her. “You just have to leave, ma’am. Now.”
Frustrated and worried, Lissette left and drove to a coworker’s house and dropped Ashley off. Then she got in her pickup and drove back to the Crossings. On the first trip there hadn’t been many police on the scene. Now there was pandemonium with cops everywhere. She felt like everything was going crazy. She had never seen so many cops. She didn’t know that an officer had been shot.
Once again, the police stopped her at the entrance and wouldn’t let her go in. One of the cops was getting angry because she refused to leave. When they learned she was Chino’s mother, they kept her from leaving because they thought she might be the driver of the “getaway” car. Then her cell phone rang and it was Chino.
“We robbed a bank and shot a cop,” he told her. “Paula and I are going to kill each other.”
“No, Chino! What about Ashley?”
They talked about Ashley for a little while, and Chino asked Lissette to bring his daughter over so he could see her.
“I’m not going to bring the baby here,” she said. “Not until this thing is over.”
Paula came on the line. “I’m going to kill myself!” she screamed. “I’m going to kill myself!”
“Think about Ashley.”
“I want to see Ashley. Bring Ashley here.”
Lissette repeated what she told Chino, that she wouldn’t bring Ashley until “this thing is over.”
Paula said, “We robbed a bank and we killed a cop.”
Lissette k
new in the depths of her soul that if Chino wanted to kill himself, he would do it. He wouldn’t be bluffing. Her son had been suicidal for years. But not Paula.
At this point Mims realized who Lissette was talking to and asked for the telephone. Lissette protested, saying she needed to talk with him, that he was going to kill himself.
“We’re going to convince him not to kill himself,” Mims told her.
“He’s going to kill himself,” Lissette said firmly. “I know him.”
Chino and Paula were riveted by the breaking news being broadcast over Bay 9 News. They saw a massive police effort under way to keep them contained, and perhaps even storm the apartment. Davis noticed that Chino, in addition to being “very, very angry,” was also scared. So was Paula. She sat with her face buried in her hands, while Chino ranted and paced.
The television mentioned that a cop had been shot. Chino stopped pacing and listened carefully, straining toward the TV set. The announcer didn’t say whether the cop was alive or dead, or even mention her condition.
“What about the officer?” he yelled at the TV. “What about the officer, what if she’s dead?” He looked at Paula. “Oh God, do you understand what this means?”
“I don’t know, Chino. What do you want me to do?”
Davis thought she was trying to calm Chino, even though she was frightened herself. Davis wished her luck. The more agitated and frightened Chino became, the greater the chances that he would turn his anger and frustration on Davis. The man had shot a cop, after all, and still had the gun.
“I don’t know if the cop is alive or dead,” he said, pacing and holding his head. “What are we gonna do? Oh, my God. Do you understand how much trouble we’re in?”
He stopped and looked accusingly at Paula. “You never said that this was gonna happen,” he said. “It was all for you. All I was trying to do was to keep you happy.” Chino glanced at Davis. “I was trying to keep my women happy.”
