What we know about the UPS driver who was taken hostage and killed during shootout
Frank Ordonez was planning to take his 3- and 5-year-old daughters to Santa’s Enchanted Forest this month. Now his family has to figure out how to tell them he’s never coming home.
Ordonez, 27, was the UPS driver who was taken hostage by two armed robbers and later killed during a shootout with police in Miramar on Thursday. Family and friends struggled to process Ordonez’s death, which played out in a surreal, violent scene amid rush-hour traffic, captured by TV news helicopters and bystanders with smartphones. An innocent bystander, a 70-year-old union representative from Pembroke Pines, also died in the crossfire, along with the two carjackers.
Everything about Friday was overwhelming for a family still in shock — a flood of media cramming their narrow street in northwest Hialeah, the outpouring of condolences on social media and the weight of the question that won’t have a clear answer anytime soon: Why did this carjacking end with a dead hostage?
On Friday, Ordonez’s stepfather juggled his anger and grief as he recalled the last 24 hours repeatedly in front of a string of cameras, microphones and notebooks. As friends and relatives streamed in and out of the house, stopping to hug him and cry on his shoulder, Joe Merino said officers showed no regard for his son’s life when the gunfight occurred. He wondered why police didn’t try to de-escalate the situation, bring in SWAT and set up a hostage negotiation. Instead, Ordonez died unarmed in a gunfight, and Merino said law enforcement needs to be held accountable.
“It was like the Old West,” he said.
Frustrated with the police response, Merino took solace in the FBI’s leadership of the investigation after agents escorted the family home, remained in contact throughout the day and offered support in making arrangements. Merino said he hadn’t heard from any other police agencies involved.
On Twitter, Frank Ordonez’s sister Genny Merino expressed her anger over how police handled the situation instead of negotiating through a hostage situation.
“My brother was the UPS driver they held at gun point,” she wrote in a tweet. “My poor [expletive] brother who didn’t deserve this.”
The scene at home
In his home, Ordonez’s pajamas were still on his bed as if he had just left for work. His uniform lay untouched from the day before, his sister Sara Ordonez wrote in a Facebook post. So was the shoe box that held his new work boots.
“I got mad at you on Tuesday because you didn’t throw away your stupid shoe box ... always leaving a mess,” she wrote. “I hope your new work shoes were comfortable though ... you even sent me the reviews to prove yourself right.”
Ordonez had sent a screenshot of an online review from the spouse of a UPS worker to his sister. Now, the violence that ended her brother’s life will stay with her and the whole family.
“That stupid video haunts us all but I will remember you differently my happy, fun & loving brother,” she wrote.
Colleagues told the Miami Herald Ordonez was a good-natured worker who had recently been promoted from sorting packages to driving trucks when others needed time off on a route in Coconut Grove. For the busy holiday season, he’d been assigned to drive a bigger truck in Coral Gables, where the carjackers found him Thursday afternoon after they fled a nearby jewelry store they held up. Ordonez was taken hostage on a harrowing cross-county chase up Interstate 75 that ended with the shootout in Miramar.
Condolences and justice
Social media was flooded with support and prayers for Ordonez’s family immediately following the tragedy. His employer and colleagues also offered their support.
“We are deeply saddened that UPS service provider Frank Ordonez passed away from a senseless act of violence on December 5, 2019. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends and the other innocent victims involved in this incident,” UPS said in a statement to the Miami Herald. “Frank joined UPS in July 2016, working first as a package handler and then as a service provider [driver] where he served various parts of the metro Miami area.”
Josh Zivalich, president of Teamsters Union Local 769, which represents 4,000 UPS workers in South Florida, including Ordonez, said the union was focused on assisting the young man’s family. Ordonez had been a Teamster for a little over three years, he said. Zivalich blamed Ordonez’s death on the “outrageous” acts of the robbers who had used the driver as a “shield.”
“The investigation is ongoing,” he said. “It’s a tragic situation, and it’s viewed that way by everybody. I’m not going to critique the response.”
Others in Ordonez’s family blasted the police over their actions.
Ordonez’s twin brother, Roy, thanked his brother for always being there for him. In a Facebook post, he wrote that police killed his brother and that he wouldn’t stop until there is justice for his life.
“I feel like I’m dreaming, Frank I need you so much bro,” he wrote.
Roy created a GoFundMe page to help raise funds for a lawyer, funeral costs and to support his brother’s young daughters.
“He didn’t deserve to die the way he did, he was just going to work to provide for his two little girls, which he loved so much, which are now left without a father,” his brother wrote on the page.
Those interested in donating to the GoFundMe page can click here.
Roly Legarda said he’s known Ordonez since he was 16 years old when he worked at the house Ordonez’s dad rented when they moved from Ecuador to Miami.
“One day you’re here and on another, you’re not,” Legarda said in Spanish. “His death makes me very sad. ... God’s plan is perfect, and I’m hoping there’s justice for him.”
Merino had a kinship with Ordonez over their careers. A UPS retiree himself, Merino worked more than two decades for the company. He shared in Ordonez’s excitement that after working for several years sorting packages, Ordonez was in line to drive full time with a steady route in January.
Merino described a doting father completely dedicated to providing for his family. Sara Ordonez told The New York Times that her brother was saving up money for an apartment.
“He was a homebody,” Merino said. “Everything was for the girls. Everything was for the house.”
Ordonez had just set up Christmas decorations in front of the house, and he’d planned to take his daughters to Santa’s Enchanted Forest soon. A cousin who has his own daughter said he and Ordonez wanted to a plan a joint daddy-daughter trip. Now, even looking at photographs of Ordonez was difficult. The trauma was too fresh.
As Merino pondered how to tell the girls about Ordonez, he looked down and away, searching for words.
“How do you convey to a 3- and a 5-year-old that Daddy’s not coming home?”
Editor’s Note. This article was updated to reflect Frank Ordonez’s work history with UPS.
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 8:56 AM with the headline "What we know about the UPS driver who was taken hostage and killed during shootout."
