Tampa Police Shooting Suspect Dontae Morris Surrenders To Police

Tampa, Florida — The murders of TPD Officers Dave Curtis and Jeff Kocab were caught on video, and that video helped detectives identify Dontae Morris as the suspected gunman, a just-released police report says.

A dashboard camera was recording — looking outward from Officer Dave Curtis’ police cruiser — when he stopped a 1994 red Toyota with no license plate early Tuesday morning.

That’s according to the recently released arrest report for Dontae Morris, the man accused of killing the two officers and another Tampa man, Derek Anderson, weeks earlier.

“The traffic stop and shooting were recorded by the officer’s video camera and it has been preserved,” the report reads.

Police say Morris pulled himself away from Officer Curtis and Curtis’ backup, Officer Kocab, as they tried to arrest Morris on an outstanding warrant. Then, according to police, Morris shot both of the officers in the upper body.

That video was quickly turned into an investigative tool by detectives.

Officers showed still images taken from the dashcam video to Angela Murphy, a woman police say shares a child with Dontae Morris. She told police Morris was the gunman in the picture, confirming his identity “by clothing and face,” the report says.

Until the release of this arrest report after Dontae Morris was taken into custody Friday night, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor had declined to say whether any camera recorded the shooting.

The video has not been released by police, but it may become available to the public during the “discovery” process leading up to Morris’ murder trial, when attorneys are required by law to share evidence with each other and enter it into the public record.

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