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Bounty is offered in squad car shootings

Three deputies' take-home cars were fired upon in drive-bys. The Sheriff's Office hopes a $10,000 reward helps lead to suspects.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published May 31, 2006

LARGO - With leads growing cold, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Tuesday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to those responsible for recent drive-by shootings targeting deputies' cruisers.

"We're obviously concerned for the safety of our deputies, their families and the public in general," sheriff's spokesman Mac McMullen said. "We're hoping this will generate new information so we can successfully bring these cases to a resolution."

Sheriff Jim Coats made the rare move to offer a reward because of the "serious nature of the circumstances," McMullen said. The reward will be paid for by forfeiture funds.

The three drive-by shootings were directed at deputies marked squad cars parked outside the deputies' homes. The incidents occurred in the area of Largo bounded by Walsingham Road to West Bay Drive and 113th Street to Indian Rocks Road. The addresses of the deputies were not made public.

The first shooting occurred at 2:27 a.m. on Feb. 7. The other two followed after midnight on March 30, about eight minutes apart.

None of the shootings caused injury, but in two of the cases, bullets penetrated the deputies' houses, narrowly missing people inside, officials said.

Investigators have found no connection among the individual deputies, besides the fact they all drive marked sheriff's vehicles and had parked them outside 1heir homes. Patrol deputies and members of the agency who are called to scenes drive take-home cars.

If arrested, those involved could face charges of shooting into an occupied dwelling, a second-degree felony.

Earlier this month, in an incident investigators think is unrelated to the shootings, another deputy's cruiser parked in far northern Pinellas County became the target of an arson.

The squad car was parked outside a deputy's home off Anclote Boulevard on the Pinellas-Pasco county line when someone drenched it with flammable liquid and lit it afire at 4:28 a.m. on May 7.

When the fire reached the cruiser's fuel tank, it exploded and spread the blaze to a private vehicle parked nearby, also destroying it.

No one has been arrested in that case.

[Last modified May 31, 2006, 01:58:10]