Hundreds ‘ambush’ Tampa police

Two Tampa police officers were wounded early Saturday after a crowd of hundreds surrounded a group of officers in a “ambush,” the Tampa Police Chief said.

Officers responded to a report of shots fired and a possible gunshot victim at an intersection near the Ybor City neighborhood around 1 a.m. on Monday, Chief Brian Duggan told reporters. Hundreds of people were at the scene when the police arrived.

As offices searched for a potential victim, Duggan said that hundreds of people were blocking all four corners of the intersection and becoming aggressive. The crowd surrounded the officers, threw bottles and glass, and jumped onto a police vehicle. Officers were unable to locate a victim.

“It’s an ambush. I don’t have any other way to describe it,” Duggan said. “When there are so many people out there, and clearly no one was shot. It was just a set up to get the cops out there.”

One officer had been hit in the head with an object and had a small laceration and swelling, the police said. The officer was treated and discharged from the hospital. The second officer who was struck in the head with a glass bottle is also expected to be OK.

Aerial footage from the scene shows a crowd surrounding officers at the intersection, and officials can be heard over the audio saying that an officer had been hit with a bottle. At one point, a large crowd can be seen running down the street.

“There were hundreds of them,” said Dugan, referring to the crowd. “Hundreds of them. In fact, we ended up having to call every single police officer who was available that night to respond, from New Tampa to South Tampa.

Duggan said more than 100 officers responded to the scene. One person has been arrested.

Responding to the department’s moral question during this time of heightened anti-police sentiment, Duggan said that the current pressure on police officers is “incredible.”

“Just by doing your job, whether you’re right or wrong, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “No one has been listening. Any justified action is being twisted.

The Chief called on the residents to “step up and support the cops.”