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Officer Kills Armed Club Bouncer In Ybor City

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By STEVEN GIRARDI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2008

  Roobik Vartanian

TAMPA - An Ybor City nightclub bouncer was shot and killed by a police officer during a fracas that spilled outside the bar early Saturday, police said.

Roobik Vartanian, 35, was shot once in the stomach in a grassy area near the railroad tracks at 1609 E. Sixth Ave. - just behind Club Prana where he worked and in front of his home at 1611 E. Sixth Ave., where friends said Vartanian recently moved.

Vartanian was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he died, police said.

The shooting occurred about 1:20 a.m. as Vartanian and several other Club Prana employees were ejecting two Orlando men from the popular bar on Ybor City's Seventh Avenue strip, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

The employees followed the black men outside, yelling racial slurs and threatening to kill them. The club security manager then sent one employee back to the bar to get a gun, McElroy said. When he returned, Vartanian grabbed the weapon, she said.

Officer Rick Harrell and another plainclothes officer came upon the scene as they were patrolling Sixth Avenue South in an unmarked police van, McElroy said.

The officers got out the van and saw Vartanian was armed. Harrell called out, "Police," and ordered him to drop the weapon, McElroy said. But Vartanian turned and pointed the gun at Harrell, who fired one shot, she said.

No one else was injured. The Orlando men were questioned by police, and they returned to Orlando, McElroy said. Their names were not released because the investigation is ongoing.

Harrell is on paid administrative leave while police investigate the shooting, McElroy said. The 18-year veteran has been with the Tampa department for six years and has not been involved in any previous shootings, she said.

Wall-Banging Led To Dispute

McElroy said the bar dispute began when the Orlando men started banging on the walls. One of the men told the Prana employees that in Orlando wall-banging is a sign of respect and appreciation for the band or the DJ.

"That didn't go over well with the bouncers and the security here in Tampa," she said.

Vartanian did not have a concealed weapons permit and had been arrested on six felonies and four misdemeanors, police said.

Victim Had Been Police Informant

Vartanian, who lived in Jacksonville until recently, once worked as a police informant following his arrest in Clay County for trafficking in the drug Ecstasy in March 2003, according to U.S. District Court of Appeals 11th Circuit records. He helped to arrange for the delivery of 5,000 Ecstasy pills from Miami to Jacksonville, the records show. Police set up a sting operation and arrested three people on trafficking charges in April 2003.

Online Clay County court records show Vartanian was sentenced in March 2004 to a year and a half in the county jail. Six months later he was granted home detention in Duval County.

Friends in Tampa said Vartanian had turned around his life. He got a job at Prana and was training as an Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter, said Frank Mele, a Prana bouncer and Vartanian's roommate for about the last year.

He said Vartanian just moved to the home on Sixth Avenue, a building with two other units. He said Vartanian was the father of a 3-year-old daughter who lives with her mother in Jacksonville.

"He was doing good for himself," Mele said.

McElroy said the shooting was the second this year involving a Tampa police officer. The suspect in the previous incident at Robles Park in May recovered from his wound, she said.

Reporter Steven Girardi can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or sgirardi@tampatrib.com.

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