TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Friday for inmate Ricardo Gonzalez, who killed a North Miami Beach police officer during a 1992 bank robbery.
Gonzalez, 56, is one of four who robbed the Kislak National Bank of a cash box from a drive-thru teller. He is set to die by lethal injection Dec. 1 at Florida State Prison.
With executions scheduled for Thursday and Nov. 19, Gonzalez is in line to be the 21st inmate executed by the state this year.
Florida’s Department of Corrections conducted 19 executions last year, the most by the state for a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a moratorium on executions in 1976.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 32 prisoners have been executed in six states --- Florida, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arizona --- this year. Texas is the next highest at seven.
According to court records, Gonzales fired the gun that resulted in the death of North Miami Beach Police Officer Steven Bauer on Jan. 3, 1992.
Bauer was escorting bank tellers to the location’s drive-thru windows when Gonzales and three codefendants approached.
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A little over two weeks later, police stopped Gonzalez at his residence, and he made unrecorded and recorded confessions. He claimed to have shot low and believed he only wounded Bauer in the leg. It was later determined Gonzalez’ gun fired the fatal shot that struck Bauer in the chest.
Gonzalez was convicted of first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer; armed robbery; aggravated assault; two counts of grand theft; and two counts of burglary.
He was sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Officer Bauer. The sentencing order signed by Circuit Court Judge Robert Scola, Jr. on Sept. 19, 1998, states that immediately after shooting Bauer, Gonzalez went to pick up the money tray, which was on the ground. “Later he received $1,500 as his share of the proceeds from the robbery/murder,” the order states.
A clinical neuropsychologist who testified on his behalf claimed he acted under a state of extreme mental and/or emotional disturbance due to his marital demands, developmental history of shuffling back and forth between family members, educational and language deficiencies, a history of boxing and brain damage, an inability to control impulses and a lack of judgement.
Two of his codefendants, Leonardo Franqui and Pablo San martin, are also among the 235 people on Florida’s death row as of Monday, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
