Chaos Reigns In SWAT Shootings; Probe Of Deputies Now An "Organized Crime" Investigation
(Updated at 3:13 p.m. EST)
Chaos is king of the morning papers, as the Bradenton Herald leads with a report on the confusion at the scene of a deputy-involved shooting during a drug raid in Bradenton, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune puts that story on page 3 of its Sarasota section but front-pages the metro with news that an organized crime investigation that has linked two deputies from Manatee County and two from Sarasota County with a Palmetto strip club is expanding in Manatee.
The Herald doesn't have that story, but it now has the latest shooting story on its Website. It has also added links to arrest reports and an appellate court decision on an illegal charge prosecuted in a 1996 case against the lead suspect in Wednesday's raid and shootings.
First, the "chaotic" raid Wednesday that left a deputy and an unarmed suspect wounded in a daylight drug raid:
The Herald reported Wednesday morning that there were four suspects, all armed, when deputies with search warrants raided the home at 4608B 27th St. West, but today reporter Sylvia Lim says that there were only three suspects there, and that one of those "armed" suspects, who was shot by unidentified Manatee SWAT team deputies, was in fact unarmed.
It also says that the shooter was not the man they first reported but another, and quotes Sheriff Charlie Wells as saying an "armed and dangerous" seventh suspect escaped. On Wednesday, the suspect count veered from four to five to six, so the seventh is a newbie.
Wednesday morning the paper said:
Today the paper reveals that it wasn't Arnell Elrod who shot the SWAT team leader, Lt. Todd Shear, but convicted shooter Tyrone Cooper, who popped two women in a drug dispute in 1990 and served nine years until Manatee County Circuit Court Judge Janette Dunnigan, who is unnamed in the Herald, was told to turn him loose in 2000.
The paper has also produced the name of a sixth suspect in the case, 18-year-old named Travis McCants - and we guess he can'ts. They also say deputies are seeking a seventh man, whose name they say they "may have" but didn't reveal.
Now it appears only three men were in the apartment and only one was armed, although police say they found a substantial cache of weapons - three shotguns, a rifle and four handguns - along with cocaine and $18,000 in cash. The armed man was apparently concealed in another room when SWAT deputies entered the home and got off one or more shots at Shear as two other deputies returned fire, presumably hitting Elrod in the leg.
Ironically, police can't get at some key evidence - doctors haven't been able to remove the bullet from Elrod's femur.
With this latest account, it at least seems possible that Elrod was shot by Cooper. Deputies say not. We say no one can faithfully keep track of bullets in a gunbattle and that until you have a uniquely rifled bullet in hand, you can't stay with certainty who shot who unless only one person was armed.
The other suspects were seized outside the building, deputies say, because in a planning error, they failed to approach the home at a time and in a way that wouldn't tip off a group of street dealers to their arrival, and didn't get to the back door of the home in time to prevent escapes. It's left to readers' imaginations how police knew how many escaped before they arrived, and how they miscounted the original number of people in the home.
In a colorful note, the Herald says bystanders scattered as police arrived, yelling "5-0, 5-0" their street slang for the fuzz.
From an evidentiary standpoint, we'd guess police will have some difficulty tieing the majority of the seven suspects to the cash, cocaine and weapons in the house, but the paper says the bust capped a three-month investigation by locals and the FDLE drug enforcement team.
The Herald-Tribune, meanwhile, provides additional detail on the actual shooting, quoting Wells saying that Elrod was shot because a deputy thought a gun near Elrod had been fired at him, and that what was actually Cooper's bullet hit Shear's gun and ricocheted, producing a "flesh wound" on his neck.
The Herald originally reported that in addition to the neck wound Shear was hit in the "upper torso," but today says he was hit in the hand, and we think it was probably as a bullet struck his gun.
Police seem to be saying that the bullet that him in the hand was apparently the same one that hit him in the neck, but aren't doing so for publication. Neither paper raises or answers that question.
And on to the "organized crime" probe:
There's not much new detail on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's expansion of the bust of two Manatee County deputies who bought "stolen" liquor in a sting aimed at them by Wells. The two men, who are cousins, were working as bouncers in a strip club against departmental policy.
Local police, sheriff's deputies and even Florida Highway Patrol officers can take their cars and uniforms and work at local movie theaters and the like, so long as the places don't have liquor permits. It is not clear that local governments and the state are reimbursed for the use of the cars, uniforms and weapons that their taxpayers purchase, which if not would seem to be a gift of public funds that are converted for personal gain.
Police here are mostly non-union and vastly underpaid - few could qualify as new home buyers - so authorities apparently allow the extracurricular work to augment their meager salaries.
That can puzzle some bystanders, whop might - as we did recently - see 8 or 10 officers from three jurisdictions laughing it up beside their cars in front of the Carmike Theater in Bradenton.
The two men worked along with at least two Sarasota deputies at a strip club in Palmetto which has cooperated with the investigation.
It is unclear when it became an "organized crime" investigation, or whether the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's report that more Manatee deputies are being questioned is due to their working at that club or other ones. There's not much detail beyond the original story in the Trib report, and no coverage at all in the Herald.
Chaos is king of the morning papers, as the Bradenton Herald leads with a report on the confusion at the scene of a deputy-involved shooting during a drug raid in Bradenton, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune puts that story on page 3 of its Sarasota section but front-pages the metro with news that an organized crime investigation that has linked two deputies from Manatee County and two from Sarasota County with a Palmetto strip club is expanding in Manatee.
The Herald doesn't have that story, but it now has the latest shooting story on its Website. It has also added links to arrest reports and an appellate court decision on an illegal charge prosecuted in a 1996 case against the lead suspect in Wednesday's raid and shootings.
First, the "chaotic" raid Wednesday that left a deputy and an unarmed suspect wounded in a daylight drug raid:
The Herald reported Wednesday morning that there were four suspects, all armed, when deputies with search warrants raided the home at 4608B 27th St. West, but today reporter Sylvia Lim says that there were only three suspects there, and that one of those "armed" suspects, who was shot by unidentified Manatee SWAT team deputies, was in fact unarmed.
It also says that the shooter was not the man they first reported but another, and quotes Sheriff Charlie Wells as saying an "armed and dangerous" seventh suspect escaped. On Wednesday, the suspect count veered from four to five to six, so the seventh is a newbie.
Wednesday morning the paper said:
According to Manatee County Sheriff's Office spokesman Dave Bristow, officers were executing a search warrant at a home. They found four people inside, all of them apparently armed. When officers entered the residence, two suspects dropped their weapons, a third began shooting and a fourth escaped during return shooting.
Today the paper reveals that it wasn't Arnell Elrod who shot the SWAT team leader, Lt. Todd Shear, but convicted shooter Tyrone Cooper, who popped two women in a drug dispute in 1990 and served nine years until Manatee County Circuit Court Judge Janette Dunnigan, who is unnamed in the Herald, was told to turn him loose in 2000.
The paper has also produced the name of a sixth suspect in the case, 18-year-old named Travis McCants - and we guess he can'ts. They also say deputies are seeking a seventh man, whose name they say they "may have" but didn't reveal.
Now it appears only three men were in the apartment and only one was armed, although police say they found a substantial cache of weapons - three shotguns, a rifle and four handguns - along with cocaine and $18,000 in cash. The armed man was apparently concealed in another room when SWAT deputies entered the home and got off one or more shots at Shear as two other deputies returned fire, presumably hitting Elrod in the leg.
Ironically, police can't get at some key evidence - doctors haven't been able to remove the bullet from Elrod's femur.
With this latest account, it at least seems possible that Elrod was shot by Cooper. Deputies say not. We say no one can faithfully keep track of bullets in a gunbattle and that until you have a uniquely rifled bullet in hand, you can't stay with certainty who shot who unless only one person was armed.
The other suspects were seized outside the building, deputies say, because in a planning error, they failed to approach the home at a time and in a way that wouldn't tip off a group of street dealers to their arrival, and didn't get to the back door of the home in time to prevent escapes. It's left to readers' imaginations how police knew how many escaped before they arrived, and how they miscounted the original number of people in the home.
In a colorful note, the Herald says bystanders scattered as police arrived, yelling "5-0, 5-0" their street slang for the fuzz.
From an evidentiary standpoint, we'd guess police will have some difficulty tieing the majority of the seven suspects to the cash, cocaine and weapons in the house, but the paper says the bust capped a three-month investigation by locals and the FDLE drug enforcement team.
The Herald-Tribune, meanwhile, provides additional detail on the actual shooting, quoting Wells saying that Elrod was shot because a deputy thought a gun near Elrod had been fired at him, and that what was actually Cooper's bullet hit Shear's gun and ricocheted, producing a "flesh wound" on his neck.
The Herald originally reported that in addition to the neck wound Shear was hit in the "upper torso," but today says he was hit in the hand, and we think it was probably as a bullet struck his gun.
Police seem to be saying that the bullet that him in the hand was apparently the same one that hit him in the neck, but aren't doing so for publication. Neither paper raises or answers that question.
And on to the "organized crime" probe:
There's not much new detail on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's expansion of the bust of two Manatee County deputies who bought "stolen" liquor in a sting aimed at them by Wells. The two men, who are cousins, were working as bouncers in a strip club against departmental policy.
Local police, sheriff's deputies and even Florida Highway Patrol officers can take their cars and uniforms and work at local movie theaters and the like, so long as the places don't have liquor permits. It is not clear that local governments and the state are reimbursed for the use of the cars, uniforms and weapons that their taxpayers purchase, which if not would seem to be a gift of public funds that are converted for personal gain.
Police here are mostly non-union and vastly underpaid - few could qualify as new home buyers - so authorities apparently allow the extracurricular work to augment their meager salaries.
That can puzzle some bystanders, whop might - as we did recently - see 8 or 10 officers from three jurisdictions laughing it up beside their cars in front of the Carmike Theater in Bradenton.
The two men worked along with at least two Sarasota deputies at a strip club in Palmetto which has cooperated with the investigation.
It is unclear when it became an "organized crime" investigation, or whether the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's report that more Manatee deputies are being questioned is due to their working at that club or other ones. There's not much detail beyond the original story in the Trib report, and no coverage at all in the Herald.
posted by ...Joe Shea at 7:13 AM
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