Christopher Stamat Jr (right) was arrested in connection with a shooting that left a pregnant mother with a gunshot wound in her head (Picture: Tampa Police Department)
A man allegedly shot at a homeless family of five sleeping in a car, including a pregnant woman and her children.
Christopher Stamat Jr, 21, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a shooting that left a pregnant mother with a gunshot wound in her head.
The shooting happened in a parking lot across from the Martin Luther King Jr Recreation Complex in the Old West Tampa neighborhood around 4.30am on October 5.
Stamat allegedly fired more than a dozen shots at the vehicle that had clothes covering the windows.
A homeless family of five was shot at while sleeping in their vehicle (Picture: Tampa Police Department)
Police used surveillance footage to search for Stamat’s 2012 BMW and located it three miles away in his girlfriend’s garage. Cops found empty shell casings matching the ones at the crime scene and an empty box for a 9mm handgun.
Stamat admitted that he drove his car around the area of the shooting on the morning of the incident.
The pregnant mother, in her 20s, was transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Her two daughters, 3 and 9, and son, 4, were not injured and are under the care of family members in Florida. The father, in his 30s, reportedly saw a car pull up and shouted to his wife and the kids to get down to dodge the bullets.
They were reportedly living out of a rental car because a relative did not have room to accommodate them, and had been outside of Florida in recent months.
Surveillance footage enabled police to track down the suspect’s 2012 BMW (Picture: Tampa Police Department)
There is no evidence that Stamat and the victims knew each other, according to police.
Stamat was arrested for felony marijuana possession and then released, Tampa Police Chief Mary O’Connor said on Sunday morning. He was arrested that afternoon on the shooting charges.
He faces six felony charges – four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of second-degree attempted murder and one count of shooting into a vehicle. Stamat is being held without bond.
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The 21-year-old suspect allegedly fired more than a dozen shots at a vehicle that had clothes covering the windows.