Murderer of TPD Detective Has Competency Hearing Friday

[TampaPBA]

On July 24, 1981 Tampa Police Detective Gerald Rauft, 38, and another narcotics officer entered a small block house at 1410 N. 29th Street on an undercover buy of 100 pounds of marijuana when the house erupted in gunfire. The eight-year police veteran died from shots to his chest from a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver. Officer Robert Ulricksen, 27, recovered from wounds to his abdomen and right arm.

Link to Photo of Murderer Carlos Bello
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/p...Y&pageId=3.2.1

The suspect, Carlos Bello, was wounded and taken into custody with three others. He was a Cuban refugee who had been in the United States about a year before this incident took place. Bello was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and it took six years before he was deemed fit to stand trial. In 1987 Bello was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. Two years later his sentence was overturned due to competency issues. On numerous occasions through 2005, Carlos Bello was found to be incompetent to stand trial. However, suspicion grew over the years that Bello was exaggerating the symptoms of his mental illness to avoid punishment. In 2004 reports from the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee made a case for malingering. Today there are two doctors who have found that Carlos Bello is competent to stand trial.

Tomorrow (Friday), September 26th, convicted murderer Carlos Bello will again enter a court room here in Tampa to have a judge rule on his competency to stand trial. The State will be represented by Prosecutor Darrel Dirks (who helped prosecute Carlos Bello in the 1980s) and Bello will be represented by the Public Defender’s Office. The Public Defender’s Office is expected to argue that Carlos Bello remains incompetent.

Your Tampa PBA will be present during these proceedings and any Tampa police officers interested in attending are welcome to as well. We expect there to be future court hearings in which your attendance will be even more important. As always, we will keep you informed of the outcome. Court information, as we have it, is listed below. Some details of this development were obtained from media sources such as Fox 13(myfoxtampabay.com) and the St. Petersburg Times (tampabay.com).

The Honorable Ronald N. Ficarrotta
800 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, Florida 33602
Room 122-Annex
Felony, Division G
Courtroom #12
Start: 0900 - 1000 hours
(813) 272-7139

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The start time has been moved to 1000 hours.

The PBA should always attend things like this and give it as much attention as possible. A press conference or press release would be good too, especially if this scum bag gets another reprieve. A union should do much more than fight for pay and benefits. Stuff like this is very important too.

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Murderer Carlos Bello Found Incompetent To Participate in Court Proceedings

Prosecutor Darrel Dirks did an excellent job explaining to the court that the defendant, Carlos Bello, had the capacity to be competent if he so desired. Even the doctors who testified clarified that he was competent last month (August), but is not today only because he refuses to take his medication. In the end, however, Judge Ronald Ficarrotta ruled that he was incompetent.

To read this story on TampaBay.com along with Greg Stout’s interview, click below:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingne...ller-foun.html

Unreal, this is something that needs to be kept in mind during election time..

WHO WAS THE COWARD OFFICER THAT HID IN THE BATHROOM?

WHO WAS THE COWARD OFFICER THAT HID IN THE BATHROOM?

The person in the bathroom was the undercover who arranged the deal, Detective Alfred "Pete" B. Peterson. You can verify this by going to the following link and reading the second paragraph on the first page:

http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsup...2/op-70552.pdf

Alfred Peterson retired from TPD in 2001

Det. Alfred Peterson?

Didn't he leave because of a Cruelty to Animals thing?

After reading all of this, the man you should be MOST concerned with is:


The Honorable Ronald N. Ficarrotta

Oh, that's real nice and THANK YOU for the information.

Just to make sure I got it right, what you're saying is that all anyone with a "condition" has to do after being arrested for a crime is to simply stop taking their medication. Especially if they're in Judge Ficarrotta's court. I think that's swell and hopefully he'll get voted in again. Anyone know when his term is coming up?