MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Miami-Dade prosecutors said in a May 29 closeout memo obtained by Local 10 News on Wednesday that there was “insufficient evidence” to determine whether a Nov. 29, 2023 police shooting in the county’s rural Redland area was justified.
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Two detectives from the Illegal Dumping Unit of what was then the Miami-Dade Police Department, Mario Fernandez and Jorge Sanchez, shot and killed 59-year-old Osvaldo Cueli at his property in the 18000 block of Southwest 192nd Street, prosecutors said.
According to the memo, the detectives went to the property after two callers said they were trying to locate a stolen dump truck and “were chased away by someone driving a black Toyota Camry.”
The memo states that the two plainclothes detectives drove up to the property and stopped in front of a gate and encountered an armed Cueli, with whom they exchanged gunfire.
Cueli fired at least three times, prosecutors determined, hitting Fernandez’s vehicle and both detectives fired at Cueli, striking him at least once.
A toxicology report determined that Cueli had cocaine and cocaine metabolites in his system at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Upon advice of their lawyers, neither detective made a sworn statement, according to the memo.
Prosecutors said Fernandez told another detective soon after the shooting, “Yeah, I f---ing shot back through my windshield too,” saying he shot at Cueli after Cueli shot at him.
Prosecutors concluded that “because the exact sequence of events cannot be determined, due to the fact that there is no eyewitness who can establish the exact sequence of events, there is no video of the events, and both Detective Fernandez and Detective Sanchez declined to give a statement, there is insufficient evidence upon which to conclude either that the shooting was justified or upon which to prove a criminal case against Detective Fernandez or Detective Sanchez beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Cueli’s family members filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county, in which they claim officers “suddenly appeared, and without warning or any (sic) making any identifying announcement, opened fire with their hand guns (sic) wrongfully killing” Cueli, claiming the “true reason” officers opened fire was “unknown.”
It also claimed that the “narrative” MDPD put out following the shooting was “false.”
The case remained pending in Miami-Dade court as of Wednesday, along with three wrongful arrest cases.
A single judge is overseeing all four consolidated cases, which were all stayed in an order dated May 30 pending the resolution of the criminal and administrative investigations, legal analyst David Weinstein told Local 10 News in an email.
The parties are required to file a status report on the case “as soon as practicable after learning of the conclusion of the investigations,” which will lead to a hearing, Weinstein, who isn’t involved in the case, said.
“The wrongful arrest cases are impacted less by the results of the close out memo, in that they are based solely on the facts of the alleged wrongful arrest and detention of each individual and not the conclusion contained in the close out memo,” he said. “Those conclusions will have a greater impact on the wrongful death case.”
He continued, “In that case, the standard of proof will not be beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather by a preponderance of the evidence."
Weinstein said there’s a statutory damage cap of $300,000, which can be waived by legislative act.