POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is seeking several people in connection to the ambush and killing of a teenager in Bartow Monday night.
Sheriff Grady Judd said 17-year-old Taigur Taguri showed up to a park on Dudley Drive at 9:40 p.m. to sell marijuana. Judd said several Black males sitting on a picnic table approached his vehicle, opened the doors and started shooting, then fled the scene.
“There were multiple, multiple gunshots into Taigur’s 2017 maroon Silverardo pickup truck,” Judd said.
“I just heard pow pow pow as I was getting ready to go to bed,” said Riller Jackson, a neighbor. “I always feel scared when I hear guns because bullets don’t know nobody.”
Judd said the boy had tried to flee and crashed his vehicle into a fence and some equipment. He later died. Another person riding in the truck was not hurt.
“This was an ambush. An absolute ambush,” Judd said. “As far as we can tell at this point in the investigation, they did not take any marijuana that Taigur came to sell. They ambushed and murdered this young man.”
Investigators believe the suspects are armed and dangerous. They’re believed to be around the same age as the victim.
“That disturbs me. Seriously, that disturbs me. That means that, the neighborhood, we’re going to have to band together and keep our eye on the neighborhood, even, a lot closer because we got a lot of elderly folk in the neighborhood,” said Darrel, a neighbor, who did not want to share his last name.
Judd said a $5,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest in the case.
The sheriff said there is no indication at this point that the homicide is gang related.
This story is developing and will be updated.