Sarasota paper says Florida police failed to attend court hearing ? Shawn Tyson was freed hours before James Cooper and James Kouzaris were murdered
A Florida judge warned that a teenager was "a danger to the community" and should remain in custody, only for a colleague to free him hours before he is alleged to have shot dead two British tourists in Sarasota.
Shawn Tyson of Newtown, Sarasota, was arrested for killing James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, one day after their bodies were found with multiple gunshot wounds on a street in the crime-plagued neighbourhood.
But it has emerged that the 16-year-old, who had dropped out of school and is believed to have had a troubled home life, should not have been back on the streets at all after an earlier arrest for gun crime.
Detectives failed to appear as ordered at a 15 April hearing into an episode in which Tyson fired a weapon during a fight, and juvenile bench Judge Deno Economou ? unaware of the concerns of Sarasota's chief judge Lee Haworth at an earlier hearing ? released him from jail into the custody of his mother.
It was the last in a number of "prosecutorial missteps and a series of communication problems" cited by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune newspaper that led to the fatal confrontation between Tyson and the British friends, who had been enjoying a night out in the early hours of Saturday during a three-week holiday in Florida.
Detectives are still trying to work out what brought Cooper, of Warwick, and Kouzaris, from Northampton, into an area of town notorious for gang activity at 3am, but are working on several theories, including that they took a wrong turn as they looked for food after leaving a bar, or were ordered there at gunpoint before being robbed and killed.
According to the Herald-Tribune, Tyson was first arrested on 7 April for firing a gun into a car at another youth with whom he had been engaged in a feud. A Newtown resident told the paper that Tyson and her brother had fallen out and Tyson waved a revolver at them and threatened to kill them, shortly before firing.
"There's continuing potential escalation between these alleged victims and [Tyson will remain in custody] ? to help defuse this situation, but particularly because of the danger it presents to the community with a young 16-year-old handling a firearm," Judge Haworth said at Tyson's initial hearing on 8 April.
He ordered that detectives appear at the hearing before Judge Economou a week later, but they failed to do so and prosecutors did not pass on Haworth's warning.
The Sarasota Police Department announced it was no longer talking to reporters, and nobody was available for comment at the Sarasota courthouse, which was closed for the Easter holidays.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the Britons are believed to be back in the UK after their release by a coroner.
An announcement about funeral arrangements is expected soon.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/22/florida-suspect-british-deaths
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