Prosecutors want to hold Ybor City shooting suspect in jail pending trial

TAMPA — A man accused in a fatal Ybor City shooting that killed two people and resulted in 15 others being shot will remain in jail at least until a Thursday hearing, when a judge will consider a request by prosecutors to keep him in custody pending trial.

Hours after the shooting that occurred early Sunday, Tyrell Phillips, 22, was charged with second degree murder with a firearm. On Monday, the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office filed a motion asking a judge to order Phillips be held until his trial. During Phillips’ appearance in court, Judge Caroline Tesche Arkin ordered him to remain in jail until a pre-trial detention hearing on the motion set for Thursday at 2:30 p.m.

The Tampa Police Department said the shooting occurred about 2:47 a.m. Sunday between two quarreling groups near Centro Ybor, in the 1600 block of E Seventh Avenue. Officers responded to more than a half-dozen injured people outside Tangra Nightclub and a 7-Eleven store.

A 14-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man were two of the deceased victims, according to police. Sixteen people were triaged at the scene and transported to a nearby hospital and of those, 15 were shot, Tampa police said Sunday. By mid-Sunday afternoon, all but five of the injured, who ranged in age from 18 to 27 years old, had been released from the hospital, Bercaw said.

One of the two handguns recovered by police was stolen, Bercaw said. Asked if the event was gang-related, or if police were still looking for additional suspects, Bercaw said that was part of the ongoing investigation.

More than 50 officers were in the area, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said on social media, but the incident quickly turned into “a senseless loss of life by those choosing to settle a dispute with firearms.”

Castor stressed at an afternoon news conference that Tampa was “one of the safest cities of its size in the nation,” but that gun law changes were necessary to prevent more incidents like this.

“We cannot come back to the microphones day after day and give our sincere condolences to the victims of gun violence,” she said. “We as a country have to make decisions. A vast majority of Americans support reasonable firearm solutions and support reasonable regulations.”

Local businesses have partnered with Tampa police to review surveillance video that may have captured the incident. Investigators ask anyone with information to call the nonemergency line at 813-231-6130 or contact Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay at 800-873-8477.

“We need that video,” Tampa police Chief Lee Bercaw said Sunday. “We’re going to hold those accountable and we’re going to bring them to justice, but we need the cooperation of the community for that. And that is our ask.”

Times staffer Sharon Kennedy Wynne contributed to this report.
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