Two St. Petersburg, Fla., Cops Latest Victims in Deadly Month for Police Officers on Duty
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - When two wounded law officers were rushed from the scene of a deadly shooting Monday morning on Florida's Gulf Coast, someone handed St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon a ring, two bracelets and a badge.
They belonged to Sgt. Thomas Baitinger and Officer Jeffrey Yaslowitz, who died from the wounds they sustained helping to serve a warrant on a man with a long criminal history.
"I'm having a hard time letting go of them," said Harmon, whose hands shook as he held the dead officers' mementos.
These were the latest police killings in a month that already proved fatal for 14 law officers across the nation. In just a 24-hour period between Sunday and Monday, 11 officers were shot in five states, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
In the small city of St. Petersburg, officers, officials and residents were stunned by the morning's events.
Shortly before 7 a.m., a U.S. marshal, a Pinellas County deputy and an undercover St. Petersburg detective went to a home to arrest Hydra Lacy Jr., 39, on an aggravated battery charge. Officials confirmed late Monday that's who killed the two officers, wounded a third and then died - either by his own hand or by an officer's bullet.
Officials said Lacy had a long record, with convictions for armed robbery and sexual battery. He was listed with the state as a sex offender and had failed to register with authorities in December as required.
Police confirmed that Hydra Lacy Jr. was the brother of Jeff Lacy, former International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion.
Deputies had been seeking him since December.
"He was somebody we wanted to get off the streets, " the police chief said. "Who expects to walk into a house and get gunfire from the attic?"
The trio of officers knocked on the home's door and were told by a woman that Lacy was in the attic. Chief Harmon said the woman also told the officers that Lacy had a weapon.
The three called for backup and Yaslowitz and Baitinger responded. Yaslowitz was just getting off his night shift but showed up to help.
Twenty-two minutes later, gunfire broke out.
Authorities said Yaslowitz and a U.S. Marshals Service deputy - who is not being named under agency policy - were near the entrance to the attic when they called for the suspect to surrender.
The gunman in the attic fired on the officers, striking Yaslowitz. He fell wounded into the attic. The U.S. marshal was struck and fell to the first floor.
Other officers, including Sgt. Baitinger, were in the house and rescued the marshal. Baitinger was wearing a bulletproof vest, but was mortally wounded by gunfire through the ceiling. As gunfire erupted around them, other officers dragged Baitinger and the marshal out - but Yaslowitz was still in the attic.
A tactical team arrived and set up a perimeter. Hostage negotiators also showed up and talked intermittently with Lacy.
Sometime after 9 a.m., tactical teams entered the home, hoping to rescue Yaslowitz.
Again, there was gunfire between Lacy and officers. A police spokesman said Lacy may have used the fallen officers' weapons to shoot at the tactical team.
Yaslowitz and Baitinger were pronounced dead at a local hospital. The marshal was shot twice but was doing fine, Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Tom Figmik said..
It took several more hours for authorities to knock down about a third of the house with battering ram mounted on a tank. They discovered Lacy inside, dead.
"In my mind as a police officer, this crook, this criminal, this murderer, cop-killer, whatever you would like to call him, did a terrible injustice to two of my people today and two of the people that served this community," Harmon said during an afternoon press conference.
The home in a middle-class neighborhood on the south side of St. Petersburg was listed in Lacy's name, according to property records.
Court records show Lacy failed to show for his scheduled trial Nov. 1 on the aggravated battery charge, and an arrest warrant was issued the next day.
State records show Lacy was convicted in 1989 of armed burglary, resisting arrest with violence and other charges. He was released from prison 1991. In 1992, he was convicted of sexual battery with a weapon or force and false imprisonment of a child. He was released in 2001. Details on those convictions were not immediately available.
The officers' deaths came just four days after two Miami-Dade County detectives were killed by a murder suspect they were trying to arrest. That suspect was killed by another detective.
Those officers were being remembered Monday at a funeral, where news of Monday's shooting added to the grief already palpable among the thousands gathered at American Airlines Arena in downtown Miami.
The National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund said in a statement that 14 law officers have been slain in the opening weeks of 2011, and 11 officers - including Yaslowitz and Baitinger - shot in a 24-hour period.
"That's not normal," said Steven Groeninger, a spokesman for the group. "It kind of seems like law enforcement, because of their uniform, have a target on their back."
On Sunday, a man opened fire inside a Detroit police precinct, wounding four officers including a commander before he was shot and killed by police. The officers' injuries were not considered life-threatening, said Police Chief Ralph Godbee.
And on Monday, a Lincoln City, Ore., police officer was critically wounded when he was shot during a traffic stop.
Last July, two officers were shot and killed in Tampa during a traffic stop.
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