Search for police shooting suspect takes toll on officers

They have trouble sleeping.

They don't feel like eating.

Dressed in body armor to protect them from the possibility of more bullets, they toil in sticky, steamy conditions that leave them exhausted - physically and mentally.

Yet they keep going day after day, night after night, in search of the man who killed their comrades in cold blood.

And they won't stop until he's off the streets.

"It's starting to take a toll,'' said Tampa police Officer Justin Brown, who has been on the force for nearly four years. "It has eaten at us that we haven't caught this guy.''

"This guy'' is Dontae Rashawn Morris, the 24-year-old convicted felon who police say gunned down officers Dave Curtis and Jeff Kocab after a traffic stop early Tuesday. Morris remained at large Thursday despite a $100,000 reward for his arrest and despite the presence of hundreds of law enforcement officers combing the community for him.

Brown has helped on his daytime shift however he can - handing out flyers, checking out tips and leads, providing backup when police respond to various scenes after possible sightings of Morris.

As someone who worked alongside Curtis as a detention deputy for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office before they both joined Tampa police, the case has consumed him just as it has his fellow officers. He tries to sleep when he is at home, but he finds himself checking out the latest news on television or texting or calling his fellow officers on the streets for the latest developments.

Some officers have worked so many hours, so many days, they are being told to go home, Chief Jane Castor said.

Frustration is one big emotion police officers are feeling.

"I can't describe the frustration and disappointment that no one has turned him in," Lt. Brian Dugan said of Morris. "No one has stepped forward with information and that is extremely disappointing.

"You don't become a police officer for the money. You really get into it to protect others and serve others and that may sound like a cliché, but that is the reality," he added. "It's easy to see that reality when you have a number of officers here on their personal time, going on four to five hours of sleep."

All of these emotions are typical in this type of situation, say those who know law enforcement officers best.

"For most of them, it is very stressful because they have lost their comrades,'' said Kathleen Heide, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida. "There is a brotherhood among them. They are going to take it personally. They will keep at it in a professional way until the suspect is brought into custody.''

Heide compared the mentality of police officers to that of war buddies - a life-and-death profession where your life is on the line every day.

"They are doing it for these individuals and their families. There is a real sense of mission,'' the professor said of the manhunt. "Until the suspect is caught, you can't rest and put it out of your mind.''

Right now many of the officers who have toiled to find Morris are operating on adrenaline, said John Dressback, program director of the Southeastern Public Safety Institute of St. Petersburg College.

"You're in shock. It's like somebody hits you in the stomach, all the air is deflated,'' said Dressback, who was a police officer in St. Petersburg for 25 years. "You are not going to eat, you are not going to sleep until your job is done. You try to sleep, but you don't sleep well.

"Nobody is going to sleep well until the suspect is in custody.''

In the case of Cpl. Mike Roberts, who was shot and killed less than a year ago in Tampa, there was an immediate arrest.

That let the rest of the Tampa police officers have time to mourn, time to grieve, time to take care of the slain officer's family.

With Morris still on the loose, that's just not possible now.

"We really, really want this guy so these families can move on,'' said Brown, who was off today after working the last four days.

Dressback recalled the 1980 shooting death in St. Petersburg of undercover Detective Herb Sullivan, who was killed as he sat in a pickup in a motel parking lot during a drug buy that went bad. One suspect was caught right away; there was an intense manhunt for the other for days before authorities realized he had fled the country.

"It's a sickening feeling that comes over you any time a police officer is killed,'' he said. "I've been there. I know what the feeling is.''

Now, unfortunately, Brown knows that feeling all too well.

He was trying to enjoy his own family Thursday - much like Curtis did on his days off. But his thoughts constantly wandered to what was happening out on the streets.

"Everyone wants to be in on trying to find this guy,'' Brown said.