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Trooper with Tampa ties is killed in traffic stop

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published January 13, 2007

It was a routine traffic stop, the kind 24-year Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Sottile Sr. had surely done hundreds of times before.

But on Friday afternoon, after he stopped a car in Highlands County on U.S. 27 north of Lake Placid, something went terribly wrong.

At 3:22 p.m. Sottile was fatally shot, authorities said.

Deputies from several counties were searching for two people late Friday. They were last seen heading north, one on foot and another in a white or beige Toyota Camry with tinted windows, the News-Sun in Sebring reported. Lake Placid is about 100 miles southeast of Tampa, in the central part of the state.

Sottile, 48, worked in Tampa for two years before returning to his home turf in Highlands County a year ago, Trooper Larry Coggins said. He leaves behind a wife, Elizabeth; a daughter, Heather, of Orlando; and a son, Nick, of Tampa, who also works as a Highway Patrol trooper.

On Friday night, friends and colleagues remembered the veteran trooper as a jovial man who loved his job, his family and his community.

"This is not only a sad day for FHP, but it is a sad day for the state of Florida," Coggins said.

During his career, Sottile worked in Tampa, Miami, Bradenton and Highlands County, Coggins said. His personnel file, Coggins said, is "jam packed with commendations from the public."

Sottile's son and namesake followed in his footsteps, largely influenced by his father, a friend said.

"He saw how much his dad enjoyed what he did," said Ralph Carr, 59, who works with Sottile's brother in Sebring and first met the trooper in 1985. "I have never heard that man complain about anything - not the first thing."

Carr, who was once a booking officer for the Highlands County Sheriff's Office, recalled a time when he and Sottile were preparing to testify in a driving under the influence case when the judge sent a bailiff out of the courtroom to ask them to hold it down.

They were laughing so hard, Carr said, they were disturbing court proceedings. "He had a wicked sense of humor," Carr said.

Nickie, as he was known to his friends, was sandy-haired, a "robust, outdoors type," Carr said.

"He reminded you of a well rounded country boy."

Sottile was pronounced dead from a singe gunshot wound after being flown to Florida Hospital Lake Placid, said Kathy Albritton, a spokeswoman for the Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center, which owns the Lake Placid hospital.

Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee recalled Sottile as a highly regarded trooper while he was in Tampa, said Gee's spokeswoman, Debbie Carter.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office dispatched a helicopter to Highlands County to assist in the search, which involved 400 law enforcement officers. Authorities did not immediately release other details of how the shooting occurred.

Sottile is the 41st trooper to die in the line of duty, Coggins said. The last time a trooper was shot and killed was in May 1998, in Pasco County. James B. Crooks, 23, was attempting to apprehend a man who had just killed two Tampa Police Department detectives. Crooks had been with the highway patrol for nine months.

[Last modified January 13, 2007, 01:27:21]