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Consultant: Tampa officer used 'poor tactics'

A slain officer's family says the department failed to look out for her on the day she was killed.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published January 26, 2006

TAMPA - Officer Lois Marrero made "poor" decisions that contributed to her death the day a bank robber shot her in South Tampa, an independent police consultant testified Wednesday.

"The poor tactics used by Officer Marrero from the time she decided to initiate contact without notifying backup, to the time she decided to initiate a foot pursuit, (were) unacceptable police procedures," said David M. Grossi, a consultant paid by Tampa to review and evaluate the events of July 6, 2001.

Grossi was the last person to testify for the defense in a case where Marrero's family has blamed the city for not doing enough the day of the bank robbery and shooting. The family alleges that the Police Department failed to set up a perimeter around the bank robber and that a police helicopter pilot should have had an observer flying with him.

But during two hours of testimony, Grossi placed sole blame for the tragedy on Marrero and Nestor DeJesus, the gun-wielding bank robber who shot her and killed himself.

"No police officer or supervisor of any kind with the city of Tampa Police Department failed to employ any task or conduct that contributed to the death of Officer Marrero," Grossi said.

The events that day began with a bank robbery in South Tampa, and Marrero was one of 15 officers who responded.

Police helicopter pilot J.T. Martin was called to assist in looking for the robbers or their getaway vehicle. His partner who usually goes with him to act as observer didn't work that day. And Martin decided to fly alone instead of asking an observer at the hangar to go with him.

Martin's supervisor said earlier this week that he acted appropriately. The only time pilots routinely take an observer is at night.

Richard Hirsch - the attorney representing Marrero's sister, Brenda Marrero, and her divorced parents, William and Maria Marrero - has argued that Martin should have taken the observer with him.

Grossi retired as a lieutenant with a police department in upstate New York after more than 20 years and then spent more than a decade training officers around the country in survival tactics. The city has so far paid him $5,000 for his work.

Grossi said he never reviewed any of Marrero's work history files in offering his opinions because they wouldn't have mattered. He was concerned with specific events on a specific day.

"Officer Marrero, an 18-plus-year veteran of the Police Department, failed to broadcast her location and direction of travel en route to the suspect and frequently overmodulated her voice," Grossi said.

Overmodulation means Marrero was yelling into her police radio. Several officers, including pilot Martin, have said they couldn't hear everything Marrero was saying because she was too excited.

Hirsch said Marrero did say where she was at one point.

"I've got him here, he's running . . . eastbound through the cemet (cemetery) with a gun. . . . Air service is with him," Hirsch read from a police radio transcript, indicating that Marrero was chasing DeJesus through the American Legion cemetery on Dale Mabry.

Marrero later told dispatchers that she'd lost the robber. Grossi said that was another missed opportunity for her to call for backup and take cover until it arrived.

When it came to the issue of a perimeter, a set of boundaries police might have used to contain the robber, Grossi agreed with former department supervisors that Marrero should have initiated one.

Closing statements begin today at 8:30 a.m. before Hillsborough Circuit Judge James D. Arnold.

[Last modified January 26, 2006, 14:58:12]