Tampa Police: We Have A Suspect In Seminole Heights Shootings

TAMPA, FL - The former "person of interest" in the Seminole Heights shootings is now considered a suspect, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said Wednesday. At an afternoon press conference, the police chief showed a video taken moments before Tuesday's shooting and near the crime scene.

Dugan said police believe it is the same person shown in a video taken in the area where the first shooting occurred on Oct. 9 . Benjamin Mitchell was shot and died from his wounds. The new video can be viewed here.

Police are not releasing the exact location of where the latest video was taken. Dugan said police don't believe it is a coincidence that the same person was in the area of Tuesday morning's shooting and the Oct. 9 shooting.

"We need to know who this person is," Dugan said. "We don't need speculation. We don't need profiles. We need names," he said. He said police believe the killer lives in the neighborhood because the suspect has avoided capture.

“Whoever is doing it, they’re familiar with the neighborhood and they’re able to vanish very quickly,” Dugan said.

On Tuesday, Ronald Felton, an unemployed construction worker who was on his way to volunteer at a food bank, was gunned down on Nebraska Avenue about 5 a.m. Police arrived at the shooting scene within minutes, but the suspect escaped. Police say Felton’s death is linked to three other killings in the neighborhood last month.

Despite a door-to-door search by Tampa police and four other law enforcement agencies, the suspect avoided capture.

One possible break in the case, police have a witness who gave a description of the suspect.

The suspect was described as a black male with a thin build and light complexion, 6-foot to 6-foot-2, dressed in all black and wearing a black baseball cap. The suspect was armed with a large black pistol, police said.

Police said they are continuing to follow leads in the previous three murders. The fourth shooting death occurred blocks away from a memorial for the three previous Seminole Heights homicide victims.

Police have asked residents and businesses to review their surveillance cameras and share the video with detectives.

After Tuesday's shooting, police received more than 450 tips, with the total number of tips now more than 2,300. Also, about two dozen detectives are going through hours of surveillance video already obtained from residents and businesses.

Mayor Bob Buckhorn said the Seminole Heights neighborhood is being “held hostage” by the killer.

“This was a very decent neighborhood until the last couple of months,” sighed Sherry Street, 50, a cook who has lived in the area for seven years. “Up until recently I used to accidentally fall asleep with the door unlocked.”

Street told the Associated Press she has stopped walking to the store, taking the bus or sitting outside to smoke at night. Her friends would often stop by and hang out on her porch to talk, but “now they’re like, ‘I’m not coming to see you.'”

Her neighbors have also changed their routines. “At 7 o’clock you can come out this door and you won’t hear a sound,” she said.

It had been nearly a month since the last deadly shooting on Oct. 19. All three shootings took place within a 15 block area.

A former FBI investigator told Bay News 9 that the gap in shootings could be a "cooling off period" and said it is typical behavior of criminal predators and serial killers.

"They'll conduct some of the crimes, and then lay low for a while, and then potentially come back, and that is indicative of a serial killer," said Dave Couvertier.

Dugan has avoided using the term serial killer to describe the suspect despite police saying all four shootings were random.

The Seminole Heights neighborhood has been on edge since the three shooting deaths occurred last month in the span of 11 days. Police say they have no motive, but authorities consider the three shootings to be related.

The first victim, Mitchell, 22, was waiting at the Route 9 bus stop on 15th Street on his way to see his girlfriend when he was shot. The body of Monica Hoffa, 32, was found on Oct. 13. Anthony Naiboa, a 20-year-old Middleton High School graduate, was shot and killed on a sidewalk at N 15th and E. Conover streets on Oct. 19.

Hoffa, a waitress at a local IHOP, was walking to a friend's home when she was shot. Her body was found in a vacant lot. Naiboa had mistakenly taken the wrong bus to return home from work and was walking to a bus stop on 15th Street when he was shot about 8 p.m. on Oct. 19.

A reward of $91,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspect.

Watch: Police Hunt Serial Killer As 4th Person Killed

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Read the Bay News 9 story here.

Image via Tampa Police Department