Air search for robber lacked an observer

The day Lois Marrero died, only the Tampa police helicopter pilot helped look for Nester DeJesus. The other officer was at a party.

By AMY HERDY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 8, 2001

TAMPA -- Tampa police pilot J.T. Martin was dispatched in his helicopter last month to hunt for an armed bank robber. He soon spotted a fellow officer running in hot pursuit.

Moments later, Martin watched in horror as Officer Lois Marrero crumpled to the ground, shot dead by the bank robber he could not see.

A trained observer normally would have been beside Martin in the passenger seat and might have spotted Nester DeJesus before he killed Marrero, officers say.

Instead, the observer on duty that day went to a birthday party at a restaurant with the chief pilot, a flight supervisor and the community service officer who took the call.

Police officials have launched an internal affairs investigation.

Martin, meanwhile, is shaken.

"He's upset because everybody left the hangar," said fellow pilot Don Olney. Martin declined to comment.

A few days after Marrero's death, Olney said, Martin told him about his concern that the lack of an observer that day might have made a vital difference.

"Your tunnel vision will pick up a single person, and your peripheral vision is used for flying the aircraft," Olney said. "An observer can concentrate entirely on the scene."

After Marrero was shot, chief pilot Randy Miller, flight supervisor Jeff Fife, observer Jim Williams and community service officer Brenda Higgins returned to the hangar, Olney said. They worked until the hostage situation that followed Marrero's shooting was resolved. DeJesus had killed himself. Then then returned to Malios Steak House to finish their lunch for Fife's birthday.

Olney said Martin had told him that when he raised his concerns, Fife told Martin that he shares part of the blame for not insisting on an observer.

"It's hard for me to believe we had a situation like this and these officers did not do what they're supposed to do and send someone up," said Deputy Chief Tina Wright. She said she would order an internal affairs investigation.

Marrero's sister, Brenda, said several officers told her that Martin was upset by the turn of events.

"It's very troubling, and something I don't want to believe," Brenda Marrero said. "It's destroying my family to know that what appears to have been a careless decision had such an impact.

"You can't help but assume things would have been different had there been another set of eyes looking out for Nester and the officers involved."

Higgins declined to comment. Fife, Williams and Miller could not be reached for comment.

It's not the first time the department's air unit has been under investigation after an officer's death.

On Jan. 18, 1995, Officer Norris Epps drowned while acting as an observer aboard a Tampa police helicopter conducting a search over water.

The department was blasted by the National Transportation Safety Board, which found that Epps, a six-year veteran, had not been told what to do in the event of a crash.

Police conceded there was no written safety manual for the department's aviation unit. Epps also couldn't swim, which the department knew.

The department later overhauled its procedures, including mandating that only officers trained as observers could work as "spotters" in the helicopters.

Pilots, however, are not required to have observers on all calls.

A police union grievance filed in October 1995 pointed out that observers were still untrained months after the procedures were put into effect and not assigned on a permanent basis.

After that, it became common to send a trained observer on calls if one was available, said retired Tampa police air service supervisor Jim Zaleski. "You're listening to at least three radios, flying, watching for other aircraft, talking to the Tampa tower and trying to watch a scene," Zaleski said. "It gets very complicated. It always would be safer to have somebody else in there."

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.

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