Tampa Police are investigating a shooting Friday night in the Highland Pines community that left one teenager dead and another wounded.<\/p>\n
According to reports, officers responded to the area of 21st<\/sup> Avenue and Hudson Street at 9:30 p. m. after a 9-1-1 call reported a disturbance\/fight with gunshots being heard in the background.<\/p>\n When officers arrived, they found 18-year-old John Edward Brown, III<\/strong>, dead, and his best friend, Reginald Johnson<\/strong>, also 18, wounded.<\/p>\n John Brown, Jr.<\/strong> said he had been trying to keep his son in school, but it just didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in Town \u2018N Country, and when he was living with us, he was always respectful and well behaved.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, he enjoyed hanging out with the wrong people on the streets, and out there, he was wide open. It was like he was living a double life.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Brown<\/strong> said his son had lived in Grant Park, and out there, he more or less did what he wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, when he came home, it was a different story, and he just didn\u2019t want to abide by the rules. He wanted to come and go as he pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n His grandmother, Georgia Brown<\/strong>, said her grandson was great at separating his double life.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever he did on the streets, he never brought that home. We thought by living in Town \u2018N Country, the distance would make him not want to travel that far to hang out, but it didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he was a student at Hillsborough High School, he was in the ROTC, but just wouldn\u2019t stick with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Brown<\/strong> said on Christmas break about two years ago, his son left and moved back in with his mom.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore that, he had been traveling back and forth since 1996, but when he turned 15, he wanted to spend all of his time in East Tampa.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn<\/strong> was really into the gang life, and looked at gangs as being his real family.\u201d<\/p>\n John\u2019s<\/strong> stepmother, Suheill Vazquez<\/strong>, said he was baptized at New Hope M. B. Church, and enjoyed going to church.<\/p>\n \u201cBut as soon as church was over, he\u2019d go right back into the streets, and we wouldn\u2019t see him for a while.<\/p>\n \u201cHe actually maintained two residences, but spent most of his time in East Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n John, III<\/strong> was the oldest of 8 children, and has 6 sisters and a brother.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wish he would have listened or at least talked to me about what he was doing on the streets,\u201d said Mr. Brown<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew it wasn\u2019t good, because he kept getting into trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Reginald Johnson\u2019s<\/strong> mother, Kimberly<\/strong>, her son is in a lot of pain, but even more important, he\u2019s an emotional wreck.<\/p>\n \u201cHe and John<\/strong> were best friends, and I really hate this happened. I was told someone tried to steal their bicycles.<\/p>\n \u201cReginald<\/strong> hasn\u2019t been able to sleep since this happened, and he\u2019s very depressed. They had known each other since they were 5 or 6, and they did everything together. John<\/strong> would come over and stay sometimes for a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Johnson<\/strong> said her son hasn\u2019t talked much about what happened, and she feels blessed to have him still with them.<\/p>\n Reginald<\/strong> is the youngest of four children.<\/p>\n The Brown<\/strong> family has contacted JGR Funeral Home to assist them with arrangements, and ask anyone who wants to help with funeral expenses, to contact the funeral home at (813) 932-5308; Mr. Brown<\/strong> at (813) 507-6683, or his grandmother, Ms. Georgia Brown<\/strong>, at (813) 416-0976.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tampa Police are investigating a shooting Friday night in the Highland Pines community that left one teenager dead and another wounded. According to reports, officers responded to the area of 21st Avenue and Hudson Street at 9:30 p. m. after a 9-1-1 call reported a disturbance\/fight with gunshots being heard in the background. When officers […]<\/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-19669","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\/19669","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=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}