Mary O’Connor, Tampa Police Chief, announced at a press briefing that police arrested Jayden Harris, 17, in connection to a shooting of two dogs.
On Friday, October 28, Geovanni Ruiz was walking along West Powhatan Avenue with his two dogs, both seven-year-old dachshunds, when a man he had never seen approached him at around 7 pm and began robbing him at gunpoint. He demanded money from Ruiz and then opened fire.
According to the police, the man fired five rounds toward the ground and struck both Ruiz’s dachshunds. Ruiz’s reaction to the attempted robbery was to quickly pick up his wounded dogs and flee the scene.
That did not go well with the suspect, as he tried to run after Ruiz and shot at him twice while he was running away and narrowly missed him.
When he got home, Ruiz realized that one of his dogs had been badly hit during the shooting. He immediately took his dogs to a veterinary clinic. Unfortunately, his dog Jacob died from the gunshot wounds, but his other dog, Bamby, survived.
Tampa police immediately got to work on the case, and upon reviewing surveillance video in the area and a composite sketch, investigators identified Harris as the robbery suspect. They also discovered that he had been in a black Volkswagen SUV that witnesses saw circling the block before the attempted robbery and after the shooting incident.
Police Chief O’Connor said the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office had been investigating Harris about another robbery. Tampa police arrested the teenager just two and a half hours after the shooting on a robbery with a firearm and aggravated assault warrant. They were unaware of his involvement in the attempted robbery and shooting incident that killed the dog at the time of his arrest for the previous robbery.
Harris got out of jail two days later, on October 30, after posting bond.
After his release, investigators thought he might have been the suspect they were looking for in the dog-related robbery and showed his photo to Ruiz.
According to Police Chief O’Connor, when police officers showed Ruiz the photo of Harris, he immediately broke down and confirmed that Harris was indeed the robber that killed his dog.
Tampa police located Harris and arrested him on November 3 at his home in Tampa. They took the teenager into custody and charged him with multiple felonies, including aggravated assault to commit a felony using a weapon, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, robbery using a gun, and two counts of aggravated animal cruelty. They also charged him with being a minor in possessing a firearm, a misdemeanor.
The police chief said that even though Harris was below 18 years old and still a minor, he would be tried as an adult.
Chief O’Connor started her announcement by calling Harris “cold-hearted,” saying that the police force had taken a cold-hearted criminal off the streets.