Suspect in 'monstrous' attack on sleeping family showed signs of paranoia, Tampa police chief says

buddy so we are very pleased to report this morning that we've made a very significant arrest in the Oregon Avenue shooting that we had a few days ago you guys are all familiar with the fact that we had a homeless family of five down on their luck sleeping in their car when they were apparently randomly targeted by a shooter who came through and unloaded his nine millimeter weapon striking the mother who was sleeping in the car in the head fortunately the mother is recovering from her injuries the kids were not struck and our detectives and our police officers here at Tampa PD worked tirelessly for the past several days and were able to make an arrest 21 year old Christopher stamet is currently in the Hillsborough County jail with no bond so just to give you a little rundown of how it went just to recap what happened as you know the family was sleeping in the car down on their luck they were from another state they were just recently brought to the Tampa area a witness saw a two-door sedan that he described as either a 2006 to 2012 possibly a BMW Coupe our detectives again worked tirelessly scanning the area for video we were able to find video from some residences and from businesses and we identified a 2012 two-door BMW 300 series registered to Christopher stamet detectives found his car located in a garage down on Marcellus Circle which is his girlfriend's residence detectives came in contact with him at that home we did a search warrant for his vehicle found an unrelated firearm um we also did a search warrant on his residence he was arrested yesterday for a felony amount of marijuana bonded out when in fact we were able to make the case on the shooting charge yesterday afternoon and we arrested him again the way the case was made basically is shell casings so when we were doing the search warrant in his home we found shell casings that in fact matched the shell casings from the scene of the shooting he is the only resident of his home the shell casings were located in an internal bedroom in his home that has very high technology way for him to get into that bedroom he actually has like a fingerprint ID to get into that bedroom so there's no doubt that these shell casings belong to him um again when we try to speak to him yesterday he did ask for an attorney we do have him currently again in the Hillsborough County Jail on six felony counts one count of second-degree attempted murder shooting into an occupied vehicle four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon our pregnant victim is doing fine she's still in the hospital recovering from her injuries the children are in fact in Florida with family but not in Tampa anymore we are very very fortunate that this could have been a much more serious situation and we're just very glad that this very dangerous individual is off the street the shell casings so the shell casings have almost like a fingerprint on them that we can tell that the the shell casings match from the same weapon it is high-tech it's called nibin n-i-b-i-n and we are able to make cases that identify similar guns used in similar pattern crimes around the city including this case so it's almost like he left a fingerprint behind at the scene yes sir yes the shell casings were not from the weapon that we recovered correct correct there was there was shell casings in his apartment that were from the scene of the crime we have not recovered that weapon yet say that again no he hasn't provided a motive um we're not really sure what the motive is at this point you guys may remember that the victims had clothing covering their windows and they had a visor in the front windshield of the vehicle so we're not sure that he even knew um who was in the car we do know from his girlfriend that apparently he's been displaying paranoia over the last couple weeks and thinks people are stalking him so we're not sure if that's the motive here or not we're still working through those details again we made this arrest in basically 72 hours of the crime being committed we took this random senseless act of violence very very seriously and we were able to get this very dangerous criminal off the street so that's what I'm most proud of this morning is the speed the sense of urgency that our detectives and our officers you know put obviously this senseless violence number one priority and we were able to bring it to a successful conclusion say that again we had a wit a tow truck driver that was actually towing a vehicle um down around Spruce in Oregon and saw the vehicle a vehicle flee a um at a high rate of speed and him saying that he picks up vehicles for a living he knew that this was a BMW and then by we were able to confirm that by other surveillance video in the area yeah we got some unique identifiers on the vehicle and we were able to do some research in our records management system and also through video to identify the unique identifiers on the car it had some stickers it had black rims it had some unique identifiers that and then we were able to get a tag as well so we knew that was the car I'll probably his apartment is in the same complex that the tow truck driver was in it's at Spruce and Oregon I believe it's called West River flats and he lives in that complex and the victims were three blocks north of that in the parking lot on Oregon so very close he has some history um not a whole lot I believe in 2021 he was arrested by Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office battery possession of cocaine possession of cannabis with intent to sell we arrested him tpd did in 2020 possession of cannabis with intent to sell so it appears he's got a fairly significant narcotics history but again he just turned 21 as a young man he was just born I believe in September of uh 2001. anyone else yes sir she's being very Cooperative she didn't have any knowledge of the shooting itself but we did find the vehicle um in her garage that's how we found it so you know I think logic would tell you that he was trying to hide the vehicle you guys may remember we did put out um video of the vehicle like very quickly after the shooting happened so it's likely that he saw that video and he knew we were you know we were coming for him um it didn't matter though we were able to you know work again tirelessly these detectives have done so well I'm just so proud of the sense of urgency and getting this very dangerous you know random act of violence brought to a successful conclusion I can't hear you for some reason yeah she said that he's been paranoid the last couple weeks they haven't been dating very long um apparently there's some ex-girlfriend and he thinks people are stalking him I don't really have a lot of detail on that but I do know that there was some you know she did tell us that he's been acting a little a little funny lately I'm not sure what exactly that is and it really doesn't matter I mean you take a gun and you unload it on a family I mean it's just you know we we can't really sit back and try to figure out the why behind that there there's really you know zero tolerance for that kind of behavior [Music] yeah I mean I really you know once we reported that this happened we were talking about how random it was and we were talking about you know homeless families being alert and aware of their surroundings but now that I see it's a little bit less random and he probably thought that there was someone in that car that was watching him that makes me feel a little bit better that there isn't just this random gun violence going on around the city um this seems to be pretty specific that he was going to shoot that car um what I would tell anyone in the city of Tampa is to always be aware of their surroundings you know always be aware of of of what you know what's going on and specifically for homeless we do have a lot of resources in the city we have Tampa hope we have Metropolitan Ministries we have the Salvation Army I would hate to see homeless families living in their vehicle and would encourage anyone that's currently homeless to reach out and try to help try to get some resources we have a home homeless liaison program here at the Tampa Police Department we have homeless liaison Resources with the city of Tampa so there's a lot of resources that they can have to avoid living in your car to avoid sleeping in your car but I think just for General awareness people need to always be on you know high alert that there is a mental health crisis in this country and to just kind of you know kind of kind of be aware of your surroundings anyone else yes inside his apartment the only way we could get into that room was for him to use his fingerprint to get into the room I mean it was really great work by the detectives I mean just getting the warrants for the car the warrants I mean it was just a very methodical process this was not a simple case this was a complicated case and that's equally important to Showcase that Not only was it a horrific act of violence we had a very complicated set of situations I mean just because we have a car doesn't mean we have a suspect you know what I mean so the detectives did a great job being huh he had multiple guns yes okay let's switch gears if we can um bit of shooting last night at 908 North Franklin right up the road here at the lit Martini Lounge lit cigar and Martini Lounge 908 North Franklin according to Witnesses out here at the scene about three o'clock in the morning right as the bar was closing a large fight broke out inside the bar suspect left the bar apparently armed himself came back the fight ended up spilling out into the streets and we have seven people shot outside last night one of them fatally the deceased victim is a resident of California who was here visiting the area for a wedding the other six people are in stable condition at multiple Tampa Bay area hospitals we're currently working with witnesses to develop leads we have not made any arrests as of yet but again we are working with an extreme sense of urgency on this and we're not going to sleep until we have something concrete to put these uh violent criminals where they belong the suspects clearly have a disregard for human life they open fire into a crowd of people that weren't doing anything more than just celebrating right out here on Franklin Street so it's a disturbing set of circumstances I don't have a lot of details unfortunately but I felt it was important for the people in the downtown area to know that there is no imminent threat of danger right now this was an isolated fight that happened in the bar there are people at local area hospitals there was one deceased one fatality and again we're working on leads as quickly as we can to identify who was responsible for this right now we have one that we know of but there may be two we're not I I don't have those exact details I wish I had more for you but I don't I don't yes yes the deceased is from California who was in town with several friends for a wedding in the altercation we're still working through that but we believe it was two groups of people that got involved in some kind of an altercation you know three o'clock in the morning alcohol and guns are not a good combination whatsoever but again we're working as as quickly as we can to identify leads I just want the public to know that there's no imminent threat we are we the scene is secure you know we are working through leads tirelessly so if we see a lot of police activity downtown it is related to that but there's you know we're we're gonna get that under control I don't thank you

Channel: WFLA News Channel 8

Views: 316,616

Keywords: wflatampa, wflanews, wflatampanews

Id: kyilaQJSDos

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 09 2022