4 teens accused in crime rampage

Four teenagers are accused of sexually assaulting a pregnant woman, robbing a convenience store and committing several attempted robberies as they crisscrossed Polk and Hillsborough counties over the Labor Day weekend, law officers say.

The four teens were caught Monday afternoon after a chase in eastern Hillsborough County that ended when their car crashed into a sheriff's cruiser.

The suspects, all boys, were thought to have been using methamphetamine, Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said.

The teens apparently confronted several people with a handgun and a baseball bat. No shots were fired, and several robbery attempts weren't successful.

"It's incredible there was no more violence than there was," Callaway said.

The woman, who is six months pregnant, was treated and released at a local hospital. The fetus wasn't harmed, Callaway said. The teenagers were driving a Ford Expedition belonging to one of their mothers, Callaway said. She reported her son missing Sunday.

All four boys live in eastern Hillsborough and were being held at the Juvenile Assessment Center. They might have links to an eastern Hillsborough gang, Callaway said. Charges were being determined late Monday as investigators from the Hillsborough and Polk County sheriff's offices and Plant City police pieced together details.

The incidents began over the weekend in Polk County, investigators say, with a series of attempted robberies of businesses and individuals.

Early Monday, officials say, the teens broke into a Dover home. Then, officials say, they returned to Polk County, where they kidnapped a pregnant woman from her home. They sexually assaulted her in her car and left her on the side of a Hillsborough County road about 7:30 a.m. Monday, investigators said.

Soon afterward, there were several attempted robberies in Plant City. About noon, four people tried to rob someone outside a convenience store at Interstate 4 and Branch Forbes Road, investigators said. Two hours later, officials say, four teens robbed a convenience store at Keysville Road and I-4, and took off with several hundred dollars.

Soon after, sheriff's deputies spotted a Ford Expedition and chased it for about 15 minutes. The Expedition driver went the wrong way on an I-4 entrance ramp at State Road 39 and slammed into a sheriff's cruiser blocking its path. Nobody was hurt in the crash.

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