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911 call to Tampa Police dispatcher detailing the escape of Hank Earl Carr May 19 Click the triangular button above to start. Make sure you have the plug-in first. A passing motorist uses his cellphone to give dispatchers a description of Hank Earl Carr and vehicle description of Carr's escape. *NOTE if audio does not start within a few seconds of clicking the green triangle please hit the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser then try again. Radio call of Florida Highway Trooper James Crooks May 19 Click the triangular button above to start. Make sure you have the plug-in first. Trooper James Crooks final radio transmission to the Florida Highway dispatcher. *NOTE if audio does not start within a few seconds of clicking the green triangle please hit the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser then try again. Danger obvious in 911 calls By JIM SLOAN and KEITH MORELLI of The Tampa Tribune May 27, 1998 TAMPA - Against a backdrop of screams, two 911 callers describe the beginning of Hank Earl Carr's bloody rampage. The 911 caller wasted no time getting to the point. ``If I had to guess, somebody's been shot or killed,'' Aaron Czyzewski told the dispatcher at 1:43 p.m. May 19, after pulling over on Interstate 275 near Floribraska Avenue. Czyzewski called after seeing a screaming crowd gathered around a car sitting on the highway. ``It's parked in the middle of the road with the door open, and I'm just assuming something terrible's happened.'' Czyzewski didn't know it, but he had seen in his rearview mirror the seconds after two of the Tampa Police Department's most beloved detectives, Ricky Childers and Randy Bell, were shot to death. Childers and Bell were taking Hank Earl Carr in for questioning in the shooting death of 4-year-old Joey Bennett, the son of Carr's girlfriend. They never made it. Carr, using a key he kept with him, slipped off his handcuffs, grabbed Childers' gun and shot both detectives. ``There was a white truck parked next to a Ford Taurus,'' Czyzewski said, describing the truck Carr was to hijack seconds later, and the detectives' unmarked police car. ``This guy [Carr] was running frantically, getting things out of the car,'' Czyzewski said. ``He packed up and hauled off, and then somebody went up to the car and started screaming and said call the police.'' Before he left Childers and Bell for dead, Carr opened the car's trunk and grabbed the weapon police had taken from his home, an SKS assault-style rifle. Czyzewski gave the dispatcher a description of Carr - a white male with long hair, wearing shorts and limping - and the tag number of the hijacked truck. The second call came in one minute later, at 1:44 p.m. ``We got a man shot on the exit on Floribraska,'' the caller said, with the sounds of screams and yelling in the background. ``He's shot in the head; he's going to die.'' By then, Carr was headed north on Interstate 75. Twenty-three minutes later, the Florida Highway Patrol issued a ``be on the look out'' [BOLO] alert for the white 1997 Ford Ranger pickup. The dispatcher told all troopers on duty that the driver was wanted in Tampa in the slaying of two officers. Trooper James B. Crooks, assigned the number 1777, was the first to spot the truck, according to a tape of highway patrol radio communications released Wednesday. ``I'm behind the vehicle in the BOLO at this time,'' he radioed. He told the dispatcher that the truck was stopping at the State Road 54 exit ramp in Pasco County. Highway patrol Lt. Gregory LaMont strongly cautioned the 23-year-old rookie trooper who joined the highway patrol in August not to get near the truck until other officers had arrived. Several were speeding to the scene. ``Do not approach the vehicle by yourself,'' LaMont radioed. ``He's actually pulling over at this time,'' Crooks responded, in what turned out to be his last radio transmission. ``Seventeen-seventy-seven, stay away,'' LaMont warned. ``Do not approach the vehicle by yourself. Wait for assistance.'' But it was too late. Crooks was shot to death as he sat in his patrol car and his killer continued north on the interstate, taking refuge in a Shell convenience store just off the interstate near Brooksville. The clerk, 27-year-old Stephanie Kramer, became a hostage. Four hours later, after a tense standoff with SWAT sharpshooters, Carr released Kramer and shot himself with one of the last two bullets he had left. . Jim Sloan and Keith Morelli work in the Tribune's Tampa office and can be reached at (813) 259-7600.