Such a heartbreaking story. The Hillsborough County Sheriffs office tells us that a Tampa father was arrested after shooting and killing his 5-year-old daughter and injuring his son. The son who is only 8-years-old, is in the hospital fighting for his life. So what exactly happened? The mother says she kissed her kids goodnight, went to the bathroom and heard gunshots. At first she thought the gunshots were coming from outside of her home, but realized it was inside of her children's room. It turned out that her husband shot their 5-year-old and the 8-year-old in the head.
When the mother realized what happened she ran outside to have someone call 911 but the neighbor already had. The mom took over the call and identified the shooter as her husband, Jermaine Lavanda Bass. When police arrived they saw Bass still cradling the boy. He told the cops "It was an accident. I don't know how the gun went off. I accidentally shot my son." When they asked him was anyone else in the home, he said his daughter.Cops went inside the house and saw the 5-year-old girl dead and covered in blood. Bass was read his Miranda rights, but declined to make additional comments on what led up to the shooting. He is facing charges of aggravated child abuse, premeditated murder and premeditated attempted murder.
Which Florida City Made The List With Highest Murder Rates In U.S.
There's lots to love about the Sunshine State, but we're also notorious for the craziest crimes. One Florida city even ranked in the top 15 for highest murder rates in America. It's not really a list we love to see Florida on, but we can't say we're not surprised with all the insane stuff that happens here.
Our friends at neighboorhoodscout.com ranked the top 30 cities in the country with the highest murder rates per 1,000 residents. They condensed their research by including cities with 25,000 or more people. They collected their data by the number of murders reported to the FBI to have occurred in each city, and the population of each city. The city population data comes straight from the US Bureau of the Census at the time of each analysis. For instance, the 2022 list population uses 2020 population figures. The 2021 list uses 2019 figures, and so forth.
There were 14 new cities making the list this year. "The newcomer on this list with the highest murder rate is Saginaw, MI. The number of murders in Saginaw more than doubled from the previous year." Thankfully (and surprisingly) only one Florida city was ranked in the research.
Here's the top 15 cities with the highest murder rate. Click here to see the full list.
