HOFFMAN SUSPECT LINKED TO GUN THEFT

One of the men charged with armed robbery in connection with the death
of police informant Rachel Hoffman was listed as a suspect in the
theft of a gun just days before she was killed.

Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, of Tallahassee, was listed as one of three
suspects in the theft of a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol just two
days before Hoffman disappeared, according to a police incident report
obtained Tuesday by the Tallahassee Democrat .

The theft was reported by a customer of the Tallahassee auto detailing
shop where Bradshaw and Andrea Green, 25, of Perry, worked. The theft
was also outlined Monday in a letter the Hoffman family attorney sent
to the city of Tallahassee.

Police have not said what type of gun was used to kill Hoffman, but a
spent .25-caliber cartridge and two live .25-caliber rounds, along
with one of her flip-flops, were found on Gardner Road, where she told
police she was meeting the two men.

On May 7, police gave Hoffman $13,000 to buy a gun, cocaine and
Ecstasy pills from Bradshaw and Green. On May 9, they led
investigators to her body in Taylor County. She had been shot to
death. Hoffman, 23, a 2007 Florida State University graduate, became
an informant after police found drugs in her apartment in April.

The men are being held in the Leon County Jail on charges of armed
robbery. A grand jury has yet to decide whether to file first-degree
murder charges.

Travis Keels, owner of AQSI Beat the Heat Tinting, 208 W. Tennessee
St., said Tuesday that Bradshaw and Green had worked there and were
fired shortly before the undercover operation. Both worked for the
shop for about two months as contractors washing cars. Keels said
Green started making trouble and became insubordinate, so he was
dismissed, and Bradshaw stopped coming to work.

"When Green got fired, we knew it wouldn't be too long before Bradshaw
was gone because those two are buddies," he said.

Also on Tuesday, Tallahassee police stood by their earlier statements
that Hoffman didn't follow protocol during the undercover operation
that led to her death. An attorney for the Hoffman family, Lance
Block, sent a letter Monday to city officials putting them on notice
that a wrongful-death lawsuit could be filed.

Block has criticized the Tallahassee Police Department's recruiting of
Hoffman and its handling of the undercover operation. The plan veered
off course when Hoffman followed the two men to Gardner Road, about
two miles from the designated meeting place at Forestmeadows Park.

"The established plan had the meeting occurring somewhere else, a
place where we had established as an area of surveillance, and that's
where the protocol comes into play," police spokesman David McCranie
said.

McCranie would not comment Tuesday on how long it took officers to get
to Gardner Road, which was a question Block raised in his letter.
Block said police failed to immediately follow Hoffman, although she
told them by cell phone where she was headed.

"In my opinion, the most important aspect to this case is why the
Tallahassee Police Department didn't get to Gardner Road before all
the violence," Block said.

TPD's arrival time at Gardner Road was not included in the arrest
report for Bradshaw and Green, and McCranie said Tuesday that the
arrival time is part of an internal investigation.

Also at issue in the investigation is the ending of the final contact
Hoffman made with police. Investigators said in initial court
documents that Hoffman ended her phone call with officers. On Tuesday,
McCranie said police only knew that the call ended. A listening device
in her purse also stopped working.

"There was conversation between the case agent and Rachel in which she
indicated that she was going to meet (Bradshaw and Green), and the
case agent told her not to go, and then the call ended," McCranie
said. "I don't have the details of how or why. That is part of the
investigation."

Chief Dennis Jones has asked the Florida Attorney General's Office to
conduct its own investigation.

"When there's a loss of life, a tragedy, we will review our policies
and procedures in an effort to make sure we don't have another
tragedy," McCranie said. "We want to make sure the policies in place
are sound policies, but we also want to make sure the policies that
were in place were followed appropriately."

There is no timetable as to when the investigation will be complete,
he said. Jones will review the findings and make policy revisions if
necessary, McCranie said.

Meanwhile, Green's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, has
filed a motion to keep law enforcement, the clerk of Circuit Court and
any other state agency from releasing any statements, especially any
incriminating ones, made by Green and Bradshaw.

A grand jury is expected to hear evidence in the Hoffman case sometime
this month to determine whether to issue first-degree murder charges.
A hearing on the motion is set for July 15, a day after the
defendants' pretrial hearing.

"The case has received extensive publicity, and it is anticipated that
should the statements be released to the press, the defendant's rights
to receive a fair trial will be substantially jeopardized," Suber
wrote in the court document.

Hoffman's cause of death was revealed through her death certificate,
which stated "multiple gunshot wounds." McCranie said he told the
media the day Hoffman's body was found that he didn't know her cause
of death because the autopsy hadn't been performed.

"We wait for the facts," he said. "We collect the evidence, and it
goes to the Medical Examiner's Office and they provide us with the
cause of death."