Tampa cop helps arrest son www.privateofficer.com
Officer Audrey Peterson was called into work on Thursday to identify a familiar suspect on survelliance video. It was her son, Paul McDonald.
McDonald, 18, is charged with attempted armed robbery after police say he held up a couple in a Channelside garage at 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning. A man – believed to be McDonald – was caught fleeing the garage on-camera.
Police didn’t have many leads before one of McDonald’s teachers at East Bay High alerted the School Resource Officer. The teacher saw McDonald looking at the police alert on the Tampa Police Department website.
Police and deputies then took McDonald into custody, and his mother helped confirm he was the one in the video.
“She immediately identified the suspect as her son,” said Laura McElroy with the Tampa Police Department. “She was beyond consolation…very shocked to see her son involved in such an offense.”
Officer Peterson works in the gang unit at the Tampa Police Department and that unit is ironically investigating the case. But right now, there’s not any information that the incident was gang-related.
Tampa Police say there is, however, the possibility that a second suspect could have been involved in the attempted armed robbery.
McDonald was released Friday on $15,000 bond.
