Tampa detectives, state trooper murdered by dangerous criminal remembered more than 25 years later
27 years since Hank Earl Carr's murderous rampage
FOX 13's Lloyd Sowers reports that it's been 27 years since Hank Earl Carr killed two Tampa police detectives and a state trooper.
TAMPA, Fla. - It's been 27 years, but May 19, 1998, is still remembered as one of the darkest days for law enforcement officers in the Tampa Bay area.
Big picture view:
Hank Earl Carr murdered two Tampa detectives and a state trooper. The deadly rampage caused so much grief, but it also led to new laws and procedures to help protect officers.
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One of the results was a state law that prohibits carrying a concealed handcuff key, which is what allowed Carr to kill those law enforcement officers.
The backstory:
Carr was a career criminal. He was handcuffed, but had the key hidden in his clothes when he unlocked the cuffs, got a hold of one of the detectives' guns and used it to murder Detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell of the Tampa Police Department.
After that, Carr carjacked a pickup and fled north on I-75. In Pasco County, he gunned down a young state trooper, James Crooks.
Carr made it to a gas station in Hernando County, where he took a clerk hostage. There was a standoff, but as the SWAT team moved in, Carr took his own life.
Pictured: Detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell.
What they're saying:
It was a terrible day that fellow law enforcement officers who worked with Detectives Childers and Bell will never forget. A former officer who worked with both detectives remembered it as one of the saddest days of his 40 years in law enforcement.
"You get out there, you do your job, you detach yourself from the emotional side of it until it's over," said retired Tampa police officer Larry McKinnon. "Then once it's over, negotiators and other cops sat back in a room and cried."
Dig deeper:
Carr's girlfriend, Bernice Bowen, went to prison. Carr shot her 4-year-old son, which started the deadly rampage. Prosecutors said Bowen knew about that handcuff key that Carr carried with him. When Carr had given officers a fake name that day, they said Bowen didn't tell them who he really was – a dangerous convicted criminal.
Going forward, the case also affected the way the media would cover hostage stand-offs in terms of curtailing live coverage, so as not to aid the hostage taker.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Lloyd Sowers.
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