Subject in video sought in connection to bus stop shooting death

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Tampa police released surveillance video of a man who might be key to unraveling a murder that has detectives scratching their heads.

Benjamin Mitchell, 21, was waiting at a bus stop a few hundred yards from his house on N. 15th Street near Hillsborough Avenue Monday at about 9 p.m. when someone shot him and left him for dead.

"This is so crazy. I can't believe that someone took my nephew for no reason at all," said Angie Dupree, Mitchell's aunt. "You got away with nothing. You took a child's life for no reason at all because you didn't get anything."

Dupree said Mitchell was born in California before moving to Las Vegas. His parents sent him to Tampa to live with his aunt and uncle because they wanted to make sure he grew up in a safe community.

He was an aspiring musician who was studying business management at Hillsborough Community College.

Mitchell was also a good boyfriend and, according to Dupree, was waiting at the bus stop to make sure his girlfriend could get home safely.

"He was either going to pick her up or was waiting on her to get out the bus because he didn't want her to walk home alone," she said. "You can't say that about a lot of kids, but you can literally say this about him: he was a good kid."

Yahrael Bey lives across the street from the bus stop and heard the shooting.

"Me and my wife, we were enjoying our family time and then we heard a pop," he said, adding he heard at least two more shots and then ran outside where he found Benjamin on the ground. "I want his family to know that he was fighting for his life. He just didn't give up."

Police spokesperson Steve Hegarty said detectives described Mitchell as a "Boy Scout," who has a clean background. Officers are struggling to figure out why someone would have killed him; the gunman didn't take anything.

"He really appears to be just a really upstanding guy," Hegarty said. "I don't know if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time but we hope to get some answers by moving forward with help from this video."

The video was recorded from a nearby home's surveillance camera and shows a man walking in the area of the shooting at around the time that it happened. Police aren't sure who he is or if he had anything to do with the crime, but they want to talk with him because he might be the only one who knows anything about it.

Dupree hopes someone contacts police with information.

"It would be a relief [if there was an arrest], but then it would also be anger at the same time," she said. "The only question I want to know is, 'why?'"