By Tammie Fields and Melanie Michael
Gannett News Service
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — City crews tore down a house late Monday where a shootout hours earlier led to the deaths of two police officers and the man suspected of killing him.
A U.S. marshal also was wounded when police went to the house to investigate the brother of championship boxer Jeff Lacy, who had failed to appear at his trial on domestic violence charges last year. The marshal, who has not been identified and will recover, and two other officers initially went to the house but called for backup after discovering Hydra Lacy, 39, hiding in the attic of the house.
St. Petersburg Police Officer Jeffrey Yaslowitz and Sgt. Thomas Baitinger responded and died in the gunfire that erupted.
Hydra Lacy, a convicted sex offender, had told family and friends that he would not go back to prison. After a six-hour standoff and no contact with the suspect, police stormed the house with a front-end loader, discovering his body. The cause of his death is under investigation.
The officers’ deaths come four days after two Miami-Dade County detectives were killed by a murder suspect they were trying to arrest. Another detective killed that suspect.
For hours Monday evening, bulldozers demolished the house that was badly damaged. Debris was transferred to dump trucks and driven away.
Copyright 2011 Gannett Company, Inc.