TAMPA, Fla. — New details have emerged in the shooting death of a teenaged boy at the home of a Tampa Police officer last December.
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Attorney Richard Escobar, who represents the Tampa Police Officer and his son, told us the teen who died, Bradley Hulett, 15, was killed while playing a video game.
“He was playing a video game and he was shot in the back of his torso and so a very unfortunate, very tragic and very horrific death,” Escobar explained.
However, the medical examiner's office has not confirmed the exact location of where Hulett was shot.
Escobar went on to say the officer wasn’t at home at the time of the shooting and that the gun used was the officer’s weapon, but it was not his service weapon.
“He is a SWAT team member. He’s a 17-year veteran of law enforcement. He’s a guy that’s very safety conscious," Escobar said. "In fact, when he leaves his home, that particular weapon is disarmed. The clip is taken out, the bullets are taken out of that gun and that gun is left there in a locked room,” Escobar said.
According to deputies there were four teenaged boys at the home at the time of the shooting. But there haven’t been any arrests in this case.
“The unfortunate part is that these boys had come back to the home in order to get some belongings so that they could spend the night at one of the other boy’s home,” Escobar said. “Unfortunately, they got into that particular room. Unfortunately, the gun was retrieved from that particular room and this tragic accident happened.”
Escobar doesn’t represent the other two boys who were in the home with his client and the victim, but he says based on what he knows, the teenager who shot Hulett didn’t do it on purpose.
“Looking at it from the boy’s perspective — think about this: What young man would pick up a gun, see that it has no clip in it and even imagine that it could fire a round. You would think just the opposite,” he said. “As a young man looking at a gun and seeing a clip was not there you would think even if you pulled that trigger that it was not going to fire a bullet.”
There was no clip in the gun, according to Escobar, but he says there was a bullet in the chamber the boys didn’t know about, and that one round ended Hulett’s life.
“I can’t even imagine what these parents are going through day in and day out with the loss of this young man, but it is truly an accident,” Escobar said.
Escobar said his client didn’t commit any crimes because he properly secured the room where his gun was kept, but that part of the investigation is still ongoing.
We reached out to the sheriff’s office to get an update on their investigation and were told they can’t release any official updates at this time because the case is still open and under investigation.
We also reached out to the attorney for Hulett's family and they have not provided us with a comment.
We will continue to follow this developing story.