It Was The Darkest Day In the History Of The Tampa Police Department

TAMPA, FL — Tampa police are remembering two fallen officers Thursday on what was one of the darkest days in the department's history. Two detectives died in the line of duty 24 year ago but they are honored daily — one of the slain officers has a daughter on the Tampa force.

Around 2 p.m. May 19, 1998, Detective Randy Bell, 44, and Detective Ricky Childers, 46, had been investigating the death of a 4-year-old boy and were transporting suspect Hank Earl Carr to back to police headquarters. Carr was handcuffed in the backseat of their police vehicle.

The detectives were on the ramp exiting Interstate 275 when Carr, a 30-year-old convicted felon, used a handcuff key hidden in his pants to unlock his handcuffs. He then grabbed Childers' gun from the detective's holster.

Carr shot Childers first and then turned the gun on Bell.

See related story: Tampa Bay Law Enforcement Remember Fallen During National Police Week

Carr's murderous rampage didn't end there. He went on to shoot Florida Highway Patrol Trooper James "Brad" Crooks before killing himself during a standoff with police at a Hernando County gas station.

Shortly before 10 a.m. that day, Carr and his girlfriend, Bernice Bowen, who shared an apartment at 709 E. Crenshaw St., Tampa, with her two children, a 4-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, showed up at a fire station with the boy, Joey.

Joey had been shot in the head. Carr told paramedics that the boy accidentally shot himself.

When the paramedics pronounced Joey dead, Carr ran from the fire station. As Carr was fleeing, he happened to run out in front of Childers' unmarked car. Childers arrested Carr and took him to police headquarters for an interview.

There, police learned that Carr, who was going by the name Joseph Bennett, was a felon in four states and had publicly sworn that he'd rather die than return to prison.

During the interview with Tampa police detectives, Carr changed his story. He told detectives that Joey had been dragging an assault rifle by the barrel, and it fired when Carr reached to take it away from the boy.

The detectives drove Carr back to his apartment so he could walk them through the chain of events. They then confiscated the rifle in the apartment, handcuffed Carr and put him back into Childers' unmarked Ford Taurus.

With Childers driving, the detectives were returning Carr to police headquarters in downtown Tampa when Carr unlocked his cuffs, reached into the front seat and grabbed Childers' 9 mm handgun from the holster.

He then shot both detectives in the face.

Following that day, Tampa police required that all people in police custody be handcuffed behind their backs.

Leaving the bodies of the two detectives in the car, Carr grabbed his rifle, carjacked a truck and began driving north.

As he sped through Pasco County, Carr exchanged gunfire with Pasco sheriff's deputies and shot a truck driver in the shoulder.

Crooks, 23, who'd only been on the job for eight months, pulled up behind Carr on the exit ramp of Interstate 75 and State Road 54.

The vehicles on the ramp were stopped for traffic when Carr got out of the truck and fired into Crooks' cruiser, killing him.

Carr proceeded into Hernando County where he fired a bullet through the floor board of a sheriff's helicopter.

He fired at more than 75 law enforcement vehicles before pulling into a Shell gas station off Exit 50 of I-75.

Wounded in the buttocks from the exchange of gunfire, Carr took gas station clerk Stephanie Kramer hostage for more than four hours, holding law enforcement at bay.

During that time, he reiterated his earlier vow to Kramer that he would die before returning to prison.

As the SWAT team stormed the gas station, Carr released Kramer and shot himself in the head.

Childers, a 21-year Tampa police veteran, was married and had two sons. Bell, with 18 years on the job in Tampa, was married and had three daughters, two stepchildren and a grandson. Crooks was engaged to be married six months from that day.

Members of both Childers' and Bell's families were on hand May 9 when Tampa police hosted a ceremony at the Tampa Police Headquarters in Tampa in honor of fallen law enforcement officers during National Police Week.

During the ceremony, co-workers, family members, city officials and members of the community honored 32 Tampa police officers killed in the line of duty since 1895. The names of the two detectives are among those engraved on the police memorial in front of Tampa Police Headquarters.

Every year on the anniversary of the deaths of the two detectives, Tampa residents Robin Sarrasin and Marcus Peworchik replant flowers around their memorials.

"Without fail, Robin Sarrasin and Marcus Peworchik clean up and replant their memorials around the anniversary of their passing," wrote the Tampa Police Benevolent Association on its Facebook page this week. "They do it without need for credit or reward, and we are eternally grateful for their continued love. They may not want you to know about it, but we do because a person remembered is never truly gone."