TAMPA, Fla. – The mayor of a Florida city told police officers looking for a suspect in three fatal and apparently random shootings in one neighborhood to hunt him down and "bring his head to me."
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn addressed the officers Wednesday afternoon during a roll call in the Seminole Heights neighborhood where two men and one woman have been gunned down while walking since Oct. 9.
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“This guy is not going to win,” Buckhorn said. “He’s not taking over this neighborhood. You guys go hunt him down and bring his head to me.”
Buckhorn and interim police Chief Brian Dugan told the officers they have brought "a sense of calmness" to the terrorized neighborhood. Then, officers headed out by patrol car, bicycle and on foot to resume patrols.
Police cited “circumstances” and proximity of the killings as to why investigators believe the three cases are related, but they stopped short of using the term “serial killer.”
“We have purposely avoided that tag because I don’t want people to stereotype, to narrow their search,” Dugan said. “We don’t have enough information for those type of labels.”
Dugan promised worried parents that trick-or-treating will still take place in the neighborhood, adding that he will "personally be on patrol" there on Halloween night.
The search continues for a person of interest wearing a hooded sweatshirt seen in surveillance video in the area on the night of the first murder.
A $25,000 reward is being offered by Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay and the ATF for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the killings.
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