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BROOKSVILLE, FLORIDA (EmergencyNet News) - Two police officers and a Florida State trooper were shot and killed by a suspect who managed to wriggle out of his handcuffs while he was being transported on Tuesday. The suspect took a hostage at a gas station before he killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The hostage, a female clerk at the station, had been released earlier.

About 170 police officers had surrounded the Shell station located about 50 miles north of Tampa. When negotiations with the man broke down, police shot tear gas into the station, fired off an explosive device behind the building and rushed inside to find the suspect dead.

Officers had been transporting the man to Tampa police headquarters for questioning in the shooting death of his 4-year-old son. According to police, the man had a criminal record dating back to 1986. Charges against him in the past included burglary, domestic violence, assault, grand larceny, possession of cocaine and resisting an officer with violence.

A local radio station was able to interview the man, who called the station and said he shot two officers after they refused to listen to his explanation of how his son died of a gunshot wound. He said the boy's death was an accident.

The suspect said on the air, "They started calling me a liar ... and I was going to jail and prison. I got one of the handcuffs off. I reached up front and got the pistol away from the officer that was driving. The other one jumped in the back seat trying to get away. I shot them both."

Police identified the two officers as Tampa homicide detectives Randy Bell, age 44, and Ricky Childers, 46. The suspect, who identified himself as Hank Carr, said he grabbed his rifle from the trunk of the officers' unmarked car, commandeered a truck and led police on a high-speed pursuit north along the highway for 50 miles.

The suspect told the radio station: "They were shooting at me every underpass I went under."

The gunman said he had been wounded in the buttocks. Police said that while the suspect was fleeing, he fatally shot a Florida Highway Patrol trooper. Rookie Florida State Trooper James Crooks, age 23. tried to stop the suspect near a highway exit about ten miles from the gas station and was killed as they exchanged gunfire.

The suspect then crashed into another Florida Highway Patrol car and shot at a truck driver who suffered minor injuries. He pulled off the highway when officers blew out the tires of the truck, and he fled into the gas station as officers were shooting at him.

"I don't want to go to prison," the man told the radio station early in the standoff. "I don't want to eat the food. I don't want to live with the people. I just don't want to go to prison. I don't want to go."

The 33-year-old suspect told the radio station that his son's death was accidental, he did not want to go to prison or be electrocuted, and that he wanted to talk to his wife. The suspect claimed he was bleeding, but for a while refused to release his hostage in the gas station.

The suspect said over the radio that his boy was dragging a rifle along behind him when both his parents yelled at him. The gun went off, both the man and the child's mother said, and the boy was shot in the head. The suspect than carried the dead 4-year-old child to a Tampa fire station to seek medical attention.

The suspect told the radio station: "That gun was supposed to be empty. I don't understand what happened."