TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Fears of a serial killer have police in Tampa escorting children to school in one neighborhood near downtown, and a city bus changed its usual route.
Three people have been shot to death in the past two weeks within a 1-mile radius in the normally quiet Seminole Heights neighborhood. Police believe the shootings are linked by proximity and time frame, but they don’t have a motive or a suspect.
The three victims did not know each other, but all three rode the bus and were alone when they were shot on the street. None were robbed.
“I’m afraid,” said Maria Maldonado, who lives near the scene of two of the shootings, about 300 yards apart. The other was less than a mile away.
Maldonado won’t let her 7-year-old son play in the yard.
“We don’t open the door or nothing. A lot of people are scared. I’m scared for my son, for the neighborhood,” she said Monday.
Seminole Heights is a working-class neighborhood northeast of downtown Tampa that’s slowly becoming gentrified. Run-down homes sit next to renovated, historic bungalows, and trendy restaurants have sprung up near auto body shops.
Residents and business owners say there are car burglaries and fights between kids, but they are not accustomed to anything like the violence that started Oct. 9.
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