Just last month I asked a friend why drug dealers often shoot their best customers (who are usually middle class whites). My friend responded, “because drug dealers aren’t professionals. They rob their customers instead of selling them drugs.”
Apparently that’s what happened to two British tourists who were shot in the back multiple times while on vacation in Florida.
According to the Daily Mail tabloid, university friends James Cooper and James Kouzaris just happened to find themselves in the seedy side of gang-ridden Sarasota, Florida, 12 miles from their holiday resort, when they were accosted by 16-year-old Shawn Tyson.
Police say Tyson shot Cooper and Kouzaris in the back with a TEC-9, a semi-automatic weapon as they turned to run away. He then cooly left them to die in a run-down housing project. Their bodies were surrounded by 20 bullet casings.
Cooper, 25, and Kouzaris, 24, arrived in Florida from England last week to celebrate Cooper’s birthday. They had planned to stay with Cooper’s parents in Longboat Key for 3 weeks.
Police suspect that the two men were picked up from a bar and driven into the area by a cab driver who then fled the scene when gunfire erupted.
“This is not an area that you would expect tourists from England to venture into,” said Captain Paul Sutton of the Sarasota police. “This is a low-income area which has had its problems with crime.”
Tyson was freed by a judge two weeks ago after he was arrested for armed robbery. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in that incident.
He is now charged as an adult and faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
