Deputy out of hospital; man charged in shooting

Miraculous.

Sheriff David Gee could think of no better way to account for how one of his deputies survived a gunshot to the neck while responding to a 911 call.

It was so miraculous that Gee got lottery tickets today for Deputy Miguel Angel Galarza, who's recuperating at home.

"God must have been really looking out for him last night, because with that type of through-and-through neck wound at the base of the neck with a large-caliber weapon, you just don't see people walk away from that," Gee said.

Galarza, 35, was conscious when he arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital, trauma surgeon Don Straub said. The deputy had two wounds in his neck, the entry and exit wounds.

The bullet passed through muscle and soft tissue, missing the spinal cord by about 1 1/2 inches.

"It's just luck of the draw," Straub said. "We see such an array of different types of injuries from these things. Some people are lucky. He was very, very lucky."

Galarza, who has been with the sheriff's office since January 2007, was shot late Tuesday after he was sent to a 911 call at Country Square Apartments, off West Waters Avenue in Town 'N Country.

The caller didn't say anything distinguishable, and the dispatcher could only hear a faint voice. After seven minutes, the call disconnected.

On the call, made available today, a confrontation in Spanish can be heard among men who appear to know one another. But the voices are largely inaudible; at one point, a woman sobs.

Galarza arrived within minutes and saw a man leaving the apartment. The man went inside and locked the door, Gee said. He then unlocked the door and Galarza went inside.

"The deputy told me that he heard some moaning and some kind of disturbance in the back as he was confronting the one person," Gee said.

Galarza ordered the man to the ground to handcuff him. "There was a tremendous struggle," Gee said.

Galarza saw the man reach into his pants for a gun and remembers the man pointing the weapon and firing. Gee said Galarza fired one round, fell to the floor and couldn't move his arms and legs at first.

He composed himself and radioed for help.

"I need EMS!" Galarza told a dispatcher. "I've been shot! I've been shot!"

Dozens of officers on the ground and in helicopters, along with canine units, searched for the shooter.

About midnight Tuesday, deputies stopped a 2006 Mazda 6 a half mile from the scene. They said Miguel Angel Serrano was hiding under clothes in the back seat and had paid someone to drive him away.

Serrano's gun was found in the Mazda, deputies said, and he had a bag of marijuana in his shorts.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the bullet that entered the back of Galarza's neck was fired from Serrano's or Galarza's gun.

Galarza didn't know it at the time, but he may have walked into a home invasion.

According to an arrest report, Serrano had forced himself into the apartment and ordered a man and woman to the ground. He covered their faces and bound their hands with wire, taking a gold ring from the man's finger, a gold bracelet from his wrist and a wallet from his pocket.

But questions remain.

"We don't believe that everyone there has been as forthcoming as they could be about what was going on in the house," Gee said.

"I don't think necessarily that we have the only person involved," he said. "If, in fact, it was a home invasion robbery, it would be unlikely that one person would be the only person involved in that."

No one answered the apartment's door today.

Neighbor Sade Warner said she heard something loud Tuesday night.

"I opened the door and there was an officer, holding the back of his neck, screaming," she said.

Another resident, Tammy Garman, said she and a neighbor saw people fleeing.

"I saw two guys run across the field that way," she said. "They ran so fast, we couldn't tell what they were wearing or what they looked like or anything."

In the past year, deputies have responded to two others calls for service at Country Square - one for a warrant and the other for a burglary of a residence. Gee said the neighborhood has had some drug activity in recent months.

The shooting comes less than two months after Tampa police Cpl. Mike Roberts was shot to death after stopping a suspicious man pushing a shopping cart on Nebraska Avenue.

"We're starting to see too many of these," Gee said.

Serrano, 28, faces charges of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, armed home invasion and marijuana possession. Bail has not been set.

Serrano has faced drug and battery charges over the past eight years, records show, and in 2001 was sentenced to 18 months of drug offender probation after pleading no contest to possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

Galarza will be on paid leave until he recovers. His family declined to talk to reporters.

A Puerto Rico native, Galarza received a commendation in July for his work helping capture four armed robbery suspects who fled into a subdivision.

"From a young age growing up in communities with criminal activity I wanted to be a police officer," he wrote in his employment application. "I believe that everyone deserves to live in a safe environment regardless of where they live."