Tampa Police officers were called to the Central Court Apartments, 2510 North Central Avenue, at 7:21 p. m. Sunday for someone shooting a weapon in the street near the complex.<\/p>\n
According to their reports, when officers arrived at the complex, they reportedly spotted someone matching the description of the person described firing the weapon.<\/p>\n
As Officers Gregory Pryo<\/strong>r and Shannon Murphy<\/strong> approached the alleged gunman, he reportedly began to walk away from them. The officers said they gave him the order to stop, but he began running towards the courtyard area of the complex. The suspect ran up an outdoor staircase, and as he was running, the officers said they saw him pulling something out of his pant leg.<\/p>\n Police said the officers continued to give him orders to stop and show his hands. When he reached the third floor, he allegedly turned toward the officers, armed with a pistol griped shotgun. The officers once again gave commands for him to drop the weapon. When he didn\u2019t, they fired reportedly in self-defense.<\/p>\n The suspect, later identified as 16-year-old Javon Neal<\/strong>, was reportedly shot at least once, and was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.<\/p>\n Residents at the complex Monday gave a different account of the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the police came, Javon<\/strong> was running from me, because we were horsing around,\u201d said Lloyvonshae Copeland<\/strong>. \u201cWhen he saw the police, he picked up speed a little bit, but, he really wasn\u2019t running. After they shot him, I tried to help him, but an officer told me he would shoot me if I touched him.\u201d<\/p>\n Duprina Brown<\/strong> said the whole thing started from incidents that had been occurring earlier in the day. \u201cSomeone was throwing a birthday party, and that always draws a crowd,\u201d said Ms. Brown<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a lot of guys standing around in the parking lot, and somebody said something about guns. Someone had been shooting earlier, but when the police arrived, they saw Javon<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Neal\u2019s<\/strong> father, Michael Lovett<\/strong>, said when he got home around 7:30, he was told the police shot his son as he was running upstairs.<\/p>\n \u201cHis mom lives on the second floor, but not at the end where he was shot.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I arrived at the hospital, I got a lot of different versions of what happened. In my heart, nothing justified my son being shot.\u201d Mr. Lovett<\/strong> said his son spends a lot of time with him at his residence near Bearss.<\/p>\n \u201cHe enjoys spending time with me, but he\u2019s always in a hurry for me to take him back to Tampa Heights. That\u2019s where he grew up, and that\u2019s where all his friends live. \u201cI had just talked to him about hanging out on the streets. He was big for his age, and I knew someone could think he was an adult.\u201d<\/p>\n The 16-year-old\u2019s girlfriend, Latarsha Gary<\/strong>, said she and Javon<\/strong> were together seconds before the shooting occurred. \u201cHe had been in the house all day, and just decided to come out. The next thing I knew, he had been shot. I tried to give him CPR, but they threatened to shoot me if I got near him.<\/p>\n \u201cI never saw him with the shotgun, but I have seen that weapon before. I never saw Javon<\/strong> with a shotgun or any kind of weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Gary<\/strong>, Ms. Copeland<\/strong>, and Ms. Brown<\/strong> all said Neal<\/strong> was trying to toss marijuana in his pockets when he was shot.<\/p>\n Ms. Gary<\/strong> said when she saw Javon<\/strong> at the hospital, he had 14 bullet wounds.<\/p>\n The Tampa Police Department Internal Affairs Bureau and the Homicide Shoot Team, along with the state Attorney\u2019s Office, are conducting a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n Officers Pryor<\/strong> and Murphy<\/strong> will be placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.<\/p>\n Pictured: Javon Neal and his girlfriend, LaTarsha Gary.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tampa Police officers were called to the Central Court Apartments, 2510 North Central Avenue, at 7:21 p. m. Sunday for someone shooting a weapon in the street near the complex. According to their reports, when officers arrived at the complex, they reportedly spotted someone matching the description of the person described firing the weapon. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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