*crooks signBy Matt Wiley

You’ve probably driven past the signs more times than you can count and not given much thought to them. While we might worry about getting pulled over for speeding and other minor traffic infractions, it’s easy to forget that members of local law enforcement agencies put their lives on the line each time they conduct a traffic stop.

The “normal” traffic enforcement practice that we all dread can turn tragic in just seconds — as it did in Wesley Chapel 17 years ago — which is why the one-mile strip of C.R. 54 on either side of I-75 was named the Trooper James “Brad” Crooks Highway in 1999. 

Just before we went to press with this issue (on May 19), the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) posted a reminder of the dangers of traffic stops on their Facebook page with a photo honoring the memory of the late Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) trooper James “Brad” Crooks, 23, who was killed during a traffic stop on I-75 in Wesley Chapel near the S.R. 54 exit on May 19, 1998. 

crooks“We are thankful for the sacrifices each of our deputies and other law enforcement officers make daily and honor those who have lost their lives while protecting the citizens of Pasco County,” the PCSO post read. “We are forever grateful for your service.”

According to PCSO and published reports from that day 17 years ago, Crooks and Tampa Police Department (TPD) detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell were victims of a shooting rampage — which stretched across three counties — by convicted felon Hank Earl Carr.

Carr reportedly had killed his girlfriend (Bernice Bowen)’s four-year-old son Joey at their Seminole Heights apartment and driven him and Bowen to Tampa Fire Station Number 7 (located at Nebraska Ave. and Hanna Ave. in Seminole Heights). At the station, the boy was pronounced dead. Carr fled, but was picked up by Childers and Bell, who happened to be driving past the station. Carr posed as Bowen’s husband, who had no criminal record, was detained in handcuffs and ordered to explain what had happened. 

Published reports state that, after Carr explained that Joey’s death was an accident (saying the boy was dragging an assault rifle that was in the home that went off when Carr tried to take it from him), the detectives took Carr back to the apartment so he could show them what happened. After confiscating the weapon, on the way back downtown, Carr slipped out of his handcuffs using a universal handcuff key (that he wore around his neck) and shot the detectives with their own weapons. He then carjacked an auto parts truck and headed north on I-275. Carr reportedly took the assault rifle with him. After the carjacking was reported, an alert was put out about the truck.

Trooper Crooks pulled Carr over in the truck on the I-75 exit ramp for S.R. 54 around 2:30 p.m., reports state. Gunfire erupted and Crooks was fatally shot in the head. It was his eighth month on the job.

PCSO deputies then pursued Carr into Hernando County while exchanging gunfire. Carr eventually was struck by a bullet and pulled into a Hess gas station on S.R. 50 and barricaded himself inside with the station attendant, Stephanie Kramer. He held the hostage until just before 7:30 p.m., after which he killed himself inside the station.

The deaths of Crooks, Childers and Bell reportedly prompted change within TPD, requiring prisoners to be transported with hands handcuffed behind their backs. Prisoners also are now forbidden from being transported in vehicles without separators between the front and back seats. 

A year after the tragic events of that day, the Florida Legislature dedicated one mile of C.R. 54 on either side of I-75 to the memory of Trooper Crooks. Also named for him was a PCSO substation in Land O’Lakes on S.R. 52, the same area in which Crooks worked regularly out of FHP’s Land O’Lakes office.

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