One Tampa police officer dead, another on life support after shooting
APDATE: Office Curtis has passed after a struggle on life support. Please keep these Officers and their Families in your thoughts and prayers. Curtis leaves behind his wife and four young childred.
Office Kocab leaves behind a wife who is nine months pregnant.
St. Pete Times-TAMPA — A Tampa police officer was killed and another was on life support Tuesday after both were shot during a traffic stop, police said.
A massive search for two suspects was launched as the city reeled from the second fatal police shooting in less than a year.
The shooting suspect, the passenger in the car, already was wanted on an outstanding warrant, police said.
Officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis, both 31, were shot in the head at 50th Street and 23rd Avenue, said Mayor Pam Iorio after a news conference.
Kocab died at Tampa General Hospital. Curtis’ prognosis “did not look good,” she said.
Curtis pulled the car over at 2:15 a.m. because it did not have a visible tag, police said, and soon discovered that one of the occupants was wanted on an arrest warrant for a worthless check out of Jacksonville.
Kocab was called for backup before the shooting occurred, which police said is standard procedure when someone is found to be wanted.
A witness said she heard four or five gunshots.
Chris Arline, 49, said she was buying a candy bar at a nearby Shell gas station when she heard the gunfire. Her son thought it was a truck.
“That’s not a truck,” she said. “That’s bullets.”
Arline left the store and saw paramedics giving CPR to a person on the ground.
The shooting happened so quickly the officers did not have a chance to radio for help. They were shot at close range, said Police Chief Jane Castor, and it did not appear they had time to return fire.
Curtis ran the driver’s licenses of both suspects before the shooting, police said. Police were not sure if the licenses were authentic.
A 911 call six minutes after the car was stopped was the first notice police had that the officers had been shot, police said. A passerby stumbled on the scene and found the officers shot, police said.
Police were looking for a 1994 red Toyota Camry they said was involved in the shooting. The car was stopped at 50th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The car pulled over at 50th Street and E 23rd Avenue.
Police said the car was driven by a woman and the male passenger fired the gunshots.
The passenger was described as a black man in his mid to late 20s, 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 150 to 170 pounds. He had a short afro and was last seen wearing brown shorts and a white T-shirt and a black vest. No description of the woman was released.
Detectives issued an urgent plea for witnesses to step forward. They want to talk to anyone who was in the area of N 50th Street and E 23rd Avenue about 2:15 a.m.
Anyone with information is asked to call (813) 231-6130.
Dozens of police and Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies were searching for the suspects.
They set up a perimeter that stretched from MLK to Interstate 4 and 40th to 50th streets. Traffic was blocked in both directions for hours. The northbound lanes were reopened by 7:30 a.m.
Kocab leaves behind a wife who is nine months pregnant, Iorio said during a news conference at Tampa General Hospital. Kocab joined the Police Department about 14 months ago from the Plant City Police Department.
Curtis, the officer on life support, has a wife and four young children, Iorio said. A former Hillsborough County jail deputy, he became a Tampa police officer 2006.
Kocab’s wife was in Kissimmee, and Curtis’ family was in Sumter County.
Curtis has four children: Austin, 9; Sean, 6; Tyler, 5; and Hunter, 8 months.
“We are doing everything we can to help the wives and the family members,” Iorio said. “It’s just a very bleak day for us in Tampa.”
After the news conference Iorio burst into tears when recounting the call she received at 3 a.m. from Police Chief Jane Castor.
“She said ‘Mayor, I’ve got really bad news. We’ve had two officers shot and one is dead.’”
As soon as she saw it was the chief calling she knew it was bad news, Iorio said. She remembered getting a similar call from now-retired Chief Steve Hogue when Cpl. Mike Roberts was shot and killed last year.
Roberts was shot to death as he stopped to question a homeless man. Humberto Delgado has been charged with first degree murder in that August 2009 shooting.
