BRANDON, Fla. - A sheriff's deputy killed Wednesday was the third law enforcement officer shot in Florida in 10 days, worsening a year that has been the deadliest in decades for the nation's police.
Hillsborough County sheriff's Sgt. Ron Harrison was shot in his car early Wednesday, shortly after leaving a drunken-driving checkpoint he was manning in this community east of Tampa. The suspected shooter barricaded himself in a house nearby and was fatally shot later by SWAT team officers.
Investigators are looking into whether Harrison's shooting was racially motivated, Sheriff David Gee said. He was black, and the white man believed to have shot him, Michael Allen Phillips, made a reference to a neo-Nazi group before he was killed, Gee said.
More U.S. police officers were killed while on duty in the first six months of 2007 - 101 - than during any such period since 1978, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, which tracks the numbers. That included 39 who were fatally shot - up from 27 during the same period last year - and 45 who died in traffic accidents.
"It's the most dangerous profession in America," said Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the Washington-based group. "You never know when the odds are going catch up with you."
Harrison, 55, a 32-year veteran of law enforcement, died five days after Friday's fatal shooting of Broward County sheriff's Sgt. Chris Reyka, 200 miles away in Pompano Beach. Reyka, 51, was looking for stolen vehicles behind a drug store when someone got out of a white car and fired at least five shots at him. His killer is still being sought.
On Aug. 6, off-duty Broward County sheriff's deputy Maury Hernandez was shot in the head in Hollywood after he pulled over a motorcyclist who had run several red lights. A suspect was arrested moments later at a nearby condominium. Hernandez, 28, remains in critical condition.
Floyd called this year's 44 percent increase in fatal police shootings across the country alarming. The reasons aren't immediately clear, he said, but the numbers are edging up as the violent crime rate rises.
The 101 killed during the first six months of this year compares with 145 officers killed nationally in all of 2006, including nine in Florida. That includes 52 who were shot, 45 who died in traffic crashes, 15 struck by a vehicle and 14 who died from job-related illnesses.
A witness reported she was driving alongside Harrison's car at about 1 a.m. when she heard shots fired, Gee said. The woman said Harrison's car clipped her vehicle as it passed by with its lights on, then crossed the road and struck a tree.
Harrison, shot at least twice in the upper torso, was pronounced dead at a hospital. One of the shots killed him almost instantly, Gee said.
Around the time Harrison's car crashed, authorities received a call from another woman who said her boyfriend told her he "had shot a cop three times," Gee said. The woman provided an address that turned out to be Phillips' mother's house, near where the shooting occurred.
Deputies found Phillips, 24, barricaded in the house and determined that he had been involved in Harrison's shooting, Gee said.
The man fired from a window twice during the standoff, hitting a deputy's vehicle and another vehicle outside the house, the sheriff's office said. SWAT members shot him through the window.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
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