Names of two fallen St. Petersburg officers released

Hydra Lacy Jr. was a man with a violent past and an active warrant on three felony charges, including aggravated battery.

For weeks, members of a fugitive task force had been hunting him. Monday, shortly before 7 a.m., they visited his house in south St. Petersburg. They were there to talk to his wife.

Nobody thought Lacy would be there.

They were wrong.

A half-hour later, two St. Petersburg police officers were dead, a deputy U.S. Marshal was injured and a neighborhood was locked down. By the end of the day, the suspected shooter would be dead as well.

Hydra Lacy was hiding upstairs in the attic. And he might have a gun.

At 7:07 a.m., a St. Petersburg detective requested backup units. Four minutes later, the detective radioed in to say Lacy was hiding in the attic.

Backup units began to arrive. Sgt. Thomas Baitinger, 48, and Jeffrey Yaslowitz, a 39-year-old K-9 officer who was getting off his shift and heading home to his wife Lorraine and their three children - were among those responding.

After arriving, Yaslowitz and the deputy marshal positioned themselves near the attic entrance.

They told Lacy to surrender. Instead, police said, Lacy responded with gunfire. The police chief called it an "ambush.''

Deputy U.S. Marshal Scott Ley was shot twice. His armored vest stopped one bullet; the other hit him in the lower torso. He tumbled to the first floor.

Yaslowitz was also hit and collapsed in the attic.

Several officers, including Baitinger, rushed in to rescue Ley and Yaslowitz.

Lacy was still hiding in the attic. He fired several shots through the ceiling at the officers entering the house, police said.

Baitinger was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, but a bullet fired from nearly straight above missed his vest and struck his upper torso.

Police said Lacy continued firing as officers pulled Baitinger and Ley out of the home. They were taken to Bayfront Medical Center, where Baitinger was pronounced dead.

But with Lacy still in the house and armed, officers could not immediately reach Yaslowitz.

As police were rushing into the Lacy home, Tammy Kitchen, 47, was leaving her home a few houses away at 2831 S., 28th Avenue to take her grandchildren to school. Police first told her to get back in the house, then told her to leave.

"I saw the U.S. Marshal on a stretcher and two cops covered in blood," she said.

By 8:30 a.m., the neighborhood surrounding the home was teeming with law enforcement - police from St. Petersburg and Tampa, Pinellas County deputies, marshals.

In Lacy's neighborhood, school officials locked down three nearby schools.

Neighbors who couldn't get back into their homes mingled with strangers and, eventually, Hydra Lacy's family. His older sister, Cassandra Lacy, stood with other families but declined comment.

Shortly before 9 a.m., police fired tear gas into the house to smoke out Lacy. A Pinellas County Sheriff's Office armored vehicle rolled up to the scene.

About 20 minutes later, a gunfight broke out.

Police were rushing the house to recover Yaslowitz and laying down covering fire. Lacy fired back.

All told, about 150 to 200 rounds were fired, according to St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon.

Despite the gunfire, police got to Yaslowitz, put him in an ambulance and took him to Bayfront. But it was too late. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

For several hours, an eerie calm settled over the neighborhood.

At the crime scene, the Tampa Police Swat team arrived with a remote-controlled robot to search the house.

They soon broke out heavier equipment: a front-end loader to poke holes in the house in an effort to find Lacy, said St. Petersburg Police spokesman Mike Puetz said.

Just after 2 p.m., after about a third of the house was destroyed, police found a body in the house. Several hours later, police confirmed it was Lacy's body.

"This crook, this criminal, this murderer, cop-killer, whatever you want to call him, did a terrible injustice to this community,'' Harmon said. "I feel a lot of anger, remorse for the families.''

Baitinger was hired June 24, 1996. He and his wife, Paige, have no children.

Yaslowitz was hired April 19, 1999 and worked his way up to become a K-9 officer. He is survived by his wife, Lorraine, and two boys, ages 5 and 12, and an 8-year-old girl.

Baitinger and Yaslowitz are the first St. Petersburg officers killed in the line of duty since 1980.

Lacy, the brother of professional boxer Jeff Lacy, has a long criminal background. He served prison time in 1988 after being convicted for aggravated assault, grand theft, armed burglary and resisting arrest with violence.

In 1992, he was found guilty of sexual battery and false imprisonment of a child younger than 13, state records show. He served 10 years in prison and was released on March 4, 2001.

State records list him as an absconded sexual offender since June 30. He had been sought since Nov. 1, when he was wanted for failure to appear on a charge of aggravated battery, police said.

The department will thoroughly investigate the shootings, and there will be time to determine whether the department needs to change its procedures for serving warrants, Harmon said.

He described the shooting of the officers as an "ambush.''

Lacy "had killing those officers on his mind, and that's what he did," Harmon said.

St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster said despite the trauma of losing two fellow officers, members of the department continued doing their jobs.

"Our city mourns and grieves, and we pray for the family members," Foster said. "I witnessed at the scene extreme bravery and heroism."

"It's a dark day for the city of St. Petersburg, but I am extremely proud of the men and women who put their lives in peril every day,'' the mayor said.