A seven-hour standoff that began with a security guard shooting up his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and included a police assault with tear gas ended in a fire Sunday that apparently killed the guard and displaced at least 100 people, police and witnesses said.
The ex-girlfriend hid in her bathroom as the security guard pumped 10 to 13 bullets through the front window of her ground-floor unit at the Cross Creek Apartments, but she was not hurt, said Margate police spokesman Sgt. Andy Zettek.
The security guard then ran across a courtyard to his second-floor apartment and barricaded himself inside, said Zettek, who would identify the man only as the head of security at the complex.
Neighbors, court records and newspaper articles identified the security guard as Dan Magno, 40, a man with a zeal for his job who was known as “Batman” because of his enthusiasm for the superhero’s memorabilia.
Magno, who had headed security at the complex for 13 years and lived in the same U-shaped building as his former girlfriend, had an argument over the phone with her about their 5-year-old daughter just before 10 a.m., Zettek said. The woman, whom police did not identify, also had a man inside her apartment, and neighbors, family and co-workers say that might have set Magno off.
Scott Autrey, 12, who lives four doors down from Magno’s unit, saw him pointing a gun about a foot from his ex-girlfriend’s window.
“He started to shoot … and I ran inside and told my mom,” Autrey said in a telephone interview during the standoff.
Authorities set up a perimeter around the apartments and a Broward Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and hostage negotiators tried to defuse the situation. Magno was licensed to carry a .357 and a 9 mm handgun, Zettek said. Margate police knew him well as a guard.
Police tried to communicate with Magno with a bullhorn, fruitlessly urging him to answer his telephone.
In the afternoon, the SWAT armored team members wearing black battle fatigues took positions on the stairs leading to his second-story apartment and fired tear gas canisters that crashed through Magno’s windows and exploded in plumes of white smoke.
At about 4:45 p.m. deputies shot another round of tear gas into his apartment.
“Twenty seconds after the tear gas … black smoke started pouring out of the roof,” said a neighbor, Frank Dort, 52. As the smoke thickened and obscured the courtyard, the situation deteriorated.
SWAT team members broke windows and banged on apartment doors, evacuating the residents who had remained in their homes during the siege. “Everybody out!” they yelled.
Zettek said the SWAT team used “non-incendiary” tear-gas canisters that did not start the fire, but he declined to discuss the team’s actions. Officials at the Sheriff’s Office could not be reached for addition comment despite efforts by phone.
While police did not say whether Magno had been killed in the fire, Zettek said, “As far as I know he was still in the apartment.”
Magno’s ex-wife, Wendy, 35, stood flabbergasted at the scene as flames spread through the building. Magno was a good father who tried to give their three children, ages 7, 8 and 9, everything he could afford, she said.
He had been depressed after losing a daytime security job at Christmastime and then breaking up with his girlfriend three months ago, she said.”I think he just snapped,” Wendy Magno said. “This is not his nature at all. He’s a stern man, but this is totally out of character for him.”
She said she doesn’t think Magno would have ignited the blaze because he had $15,000 to $20,000 worth of Batman paraphernalia in the apartment.
Other residents said Magno patrolled the cluster of U-shaped apartment buildings just east of State Road 7 with vigor, strolling the grounds on foot or riding in a golf cart with a holstered gun.
“He was the type of guy who took his job seriously, most people said too seriously,” said Larry Reed, who has done maintenance at the buildings since October.
Residents said the fire spread to an entire upper floor of one of the wings of Building 10. The Red Cross estimated that the fire displaced 100 people and they set up a temporary shelter.
Wendy Magno wondered how she was going to tell to their three children if Magno didn’t survive.
“Oh my God, they’re going to want to die,” she said. “They really love their daddy.”
Staff researcher Cindy Ken, Staff Writer Alva James-Johnson and Mike Jachles of WTVJ-Ch. 6 contributed to this report.
Andrew Ryan can be reached at or 954-385-7922.
