Police officers in Tampa were ambushed by a mob while responding to a fake 911 call.
Earlier this week, Tampa Police Department Chief Brian Dugan told the media that his police department is running empty.
“The police, we always have everybody’s back and nobody has our back,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“Right now the officers feel like they can’t win. And I would have to agree with them.”
The police chief gave several reasons for the depleted morale, including trying to give protesters space but maintaining public safety. He also mentioned how a mob ambushed his police department on Saturday.
Tampa police were called out to an intersection around 1 am Saturday morning to the report of shots fired and a victim was down.
Police say that they were not any gunshots and there was no victim but they were greeted by an angry mob waiting to ambush them. According to the police chief, hundreds of people had all four sides of the intersection blocked off as they attempted to locate the shooting victim. Then the mob became violent throwing glass bottles at the officers jumping on their vehicles.
“There were hundreds of them,” Dugan said, Fox News reported. “Hundreds. We actually ended up having to call every single police officer that was available that night to respond there, from New Tampa to South Tampa.”
“It’s an ambush. I have no other way to describe it,” Dugan said. “When there are that many people out there and clearly no one had been shot. It was just a set-up to get the cops there.”
“There have been some violent acts. People are acting out. They think they can get away with doing whatever they want toward the cops. We’re going to use the necessary force to take people into custody. I think that’s what people need to understand,” Dugan said.
Luckily only two officers were injured.
At least 100 officers had to be called to quell the violence. One protester was arrested and Dugan said that as dashcam footage is reviewed more arrests will be made.
