FOUR DEAD IN POLICE-INVOLVED SHOOTING IN MIAMI-DADE

A controlled drug sting in Miami-Dade' Redlands went awry and police
opened fire, killing four armed men who showed up to rob a home owned
by the county that was all part of the ruse.

Seven months after he was released from prison, Rosendo Betancourt
helped Miami-Dade police infiltrate a gang of suspected home invasion
robbers with a penchant for torture and mutilation.

The plan was to convince the gang there was a stash of marijuana
inside a rural Redlands home that turned out to be owned by
Miami-Dade County and set up for such a ruse.

This was a tightly controlled, well-planned, late-night operation
Thursday, with the police planning to nab the bad guys at the last moment.

Around 9 p.m., the plan turned violent, leading to a flurry of
gunfire and four bodies in the front yard of a home at 18930 SW 216th
St., all dead of gunshot wounds from heavily armed Miami-Dade Special
Response Team officers.

Betancourt, 39, who investigators described as a "cooperating
defendant," was among the dead, all of whom were armed.

On Friday, investigators were trying to piece together what went
wrong at the three-acre property. They were at a loss trying to
figure out how Betancourt ended up alongside Roger Gonzalez-Valdez,
52, Jorge Lemus, 39, and Antonio Andrew, 36.

His police handlers had given him strict instructions about what to
do at the scene.

"He was told not to participate in this action at all, not to
relinquish control of the vehicle and not to leave the vehicle,"
Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus said Friday at a press conference.

But, Betancourt came armed with a .38-caliber pistol, wearing gloves,
a mask and a jacket over the clothing that he had been wearing when
police picked him up earlier in the day.

"For reasons that are unknown to me, and unknown to us at this time,
he participated in the robbery proper," Loftus said.

Betancourt's family members were stunned at the news.

"The police picked him up and he winds up dead with those
delinquents?" said his distraught mother-in-law, Gricell Perez, 60.

Said his brother-in-law, Mike Xavier: "It's an incredible tragedy.
The police need to admit they messed up and the operation went bad.
My sister is now alone with three kids on her own and all they can
tell us is prepare to make funeral arrangements."

Five people arrived at the house in south Miami-Dade. The property
was being videotaped and a police helicopter was close enough to
capture nighttime surveillance footage. The driver was Roger Gonzalez
Jr., 32, the son of Gonzalez-Valdez. He was not injured and was taken
into custody.

Relatives said Betancourt dropped off his three children with his
mother-in-law early Thursday, left his car with his wife in Kendall
and hitched a ride with a detective.

The investigation was conducted by Miami-Dade robbery bureau's Street
Terror Offender Program, an elite group that targets violent career
criminals. Such sting operations - aided by the Special Response Team
officers - are not uncommon. In February 2007, the Special Response
Team shot four robbers, killing two, at a Doral-area warehouse
parking lot during what the gang thought was a heist to steal 60
kilos of cocaine from a cargo truck. The scenario was actually staged
by police and the key informant in that case was not injured.

In this case, detectives had been tracking this particular crew since
January. They believe the men were responsible for at least 15
violent home invasion robberies since last fall, some targeting drug
dealers and involving the torture and genital mutilation of some victims.

The leader apparently was Gonzalez-Valdez, who had an extensive
criminal past. He was released from state prison in August after
serving 14 years for racketeering, armed robbery, kidnapping and drug
trafficking convictions out of Miami-Dade, Columbia and Collier
counties. He was supposed to be on probation for 10 years, records show.

Betancourt also was released in August after serving a three-year
sentence for cocaine trafficking. Police believe he had a drug debt
to the crew. Andrew's criminal record includes convictions for
burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and grand theft.

Exactly how the staged deal unfolded is not known, but investigators
say the robbers apparently geared up at a house several miles away,
which detectives searched on Friday as part of the investigation.

Betancourt was to lead the robbers to believe there was a
"substantial amount" of marijuana inside the house, Loftus said. He
directed them to the property, some 25 miles south of downtown Miami.

The heavily armed Special Response Team lay in wait to make the
arrest. Investigators are trying to figure out if the gang,
suspicious of Betancourt and the heist, may have pressured him to go
along on the actual robbery.

The confrontation happened when the men refused commands to put down
their weapons, Loftus said.

Surveillance footage captured a "plume" that appeared to be gunfire
from at least one of the suspects, Loftus said.

No officers were injured and the officers who opened fire were placed
on administrative duty pending an investigation - routine in police shootings.

"Sometimes, this is a dangerous job and it's dangerous for us,"
Loftus said. " This is a reminder that it's dangerous for the bad guys."

Miami Herald writers Lidia Dinknova and Michelle Hammontree
contributed to this report.