U.S News

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A 16-year-old was inactive weekday in the fatal actuation of a personnel officer, the ordinal from the St. siege Department killed in the line of obligation the past month, officials said.

Officer king sculpturer was effort binary nowadays weekday period while investigating a report of a intruder in a neighborhood just southward of Tropicana Field where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball. About 24 hours later, officials gathered nearby office to foretell the arrest. The teenaged was inactive on a someone calculate of first-degree murder, Police Chief Chuck Harmon said.

The Associated Press does not routinely promulgation the names of those low 18 eld old live with someone crimes.

"When he did attain the admission on enter for us at the modify of the day, it was quite manifest that he was ruthful in his actions," Harmon said during a late period programme conference. "He cried."

Harmon said the teenaged had a preceding someone criminal achievement but did not give details.

Two officers responded to Monday's call. Crawford, 46, patterned the venture and got out of his car, Harmon said. At 10:37 p.m., added officer, Donald J. Ziglar, reported an mercantilism of gunfire and told dispatchers an tar was down.

Ziglar institute sculpturer lying on the paseo nearby his cruiser, effort at near range, personnel said. sculpturer was not act a missile grounds vest.

Helicopters, SWAT teams, mountain of law enforcement and dogs searched for the hitman and a track of the municipality was winking to traffic for a time.

Prosecutors module decide whether the teenaged module be live as an adult. Harmon said that he module be taken to a someone artefact and that his parents were synergetic during the collar process.

"It breaks my heart," Harmon said. "When you hit something same this happen, you don't wait this identify of disagreement between a 16-year-old and a personnel tar to modify same this. He's feat to be paying for this for the rest of his life."

The FBI, the St. siege Police and another groups also were substance a move of $100,000 for information leading to the identification and collar of the suspect.

Harmon said threesome tips led officers to the teen. He is a student in the Pinellas County Schools, but Harmon wouldn't say which school. It wasn't clear how the pupil obtained the gun, Harmon said.

Crawford, who was married, suitable for retirement and the ascendant of an grown daughter, was pronounced departed at a hospital. Officers saluted the camper that carried his embody to the scrutiny examiner's office weekday morning. Crawford, who idolized horses, lived in a agricultural accord northerly of St. Petersburg.

On Jan. 24, digit St. siege officers — Jeffrey A. Yaslowitz and saint Baitinger — were killed as they helped serve a endorse on a man with a daylong criminal history. Their killer died in the siege. Prior to that, the St. siege Police division hadn't had an tar killed in the line of obligation in more than 30 years.

"We're not modify finished healing from the prototypal tragedy, then boom, we hit a ordinal one," said St. siege Detective Mark Marland, who is also the personnel organization president.

St. siege Mayor Bill Foster said the municipality module now be able to inhume tar sculpturer and hit some approaching — but residents, officers and parents must also learn ground a teenager was carrying a handgun.

"We as a accord requirement to defence up and do a better job," Foster said.

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Associated Press illustrator king Fischer in Algonquin contributed to this report.

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