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Chris Tisch - Senior News Editor, Breaking News and Criminal Justice

Senior News Editor, Breaking News and Criminal Justice

I'm the editor of the Times' breaking news and criminal justice team, a group of about a dozen editors and reporters who bring you the Tampa Bay area's most urgent stories. I've lived in the Tampa Bay area since 1995 after growing up in a remote town of 2,500 in northern Wisconsin. After a childhood filled with things like ice fishing, Green Bay Packers worship and saying funny words like "bubbler" and "you betcha," I studied journalism at Northwestern University before landing a job covering the cops beat at the Bradenton Herald. I came to the Times five years later and have been in the thick of a number of big stories, including covering Florida's death penalty, riding out and reporting on Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, helping with the Terri Schiavo story and co-authoring a project about the mounting number of fatal prescription drug overdoses in Florida.

  1. A Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been arrested on a drunken driving charge and placed on unpaid leave after a crash in Polk County in December.
  2. Polk County deputies search Lake Eloise for two boaters who went missing Saturday. Their bodies were found on Monday.
  3. Jeremiah Harris, 20, has been arrested on charges of first-degree murder and armed robbery.
  4. Talina Story went missing late Monday night, police said.
  5. A man driving a van in the wrong direction on a Pasco County road struck and killed a man on a motorized scooter on Thursday night, the Florida Highway Patrol reported.
  6. This provided file photo shows Ty Weaver, head brewer at 3 Daughters Brewing. Mike Harting, the owner of 3 Daughters Brewing, confirmed to the Times that Weaver was the motorcyclist killed on the Sunshine Skyway bridge Thursday morning.
  7. A woman was killed Tuesday morning after she was hit by a pickup after the driver turned into the driveway of a CVS to avoid a crash with another vehicle, the Florida Highway Patrol reported. The pickup then hit a power pole.
  8. Grant Gibson, 42, was arrested on a grand theft charge Monday. He stole nearly $73,000 from a Buffalo Wild Wings where he was a manager, Largo police said.
  9. Vincent Anthony Vagianow, 19, has been arrested on charges of extortion and child pornography possession.
  10. Hernando County deputies are searching for this missing 2-year-old boy.
  11. Traffic on northbound Interstate 75 in Marion County was backed up for eight miles and southbound traffic was backed up for four miles after a tractor trailer hit an overpass in Ocala on Wednesday. All northbound lanes were closed in the area.
  12. A veteran deputy with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has been charged with drunken driving after an incident in which he was driving a motorcycle at 105 mph just before crashing into a tanker, agency officials said Tuesday.
  13. Video shows Nashali Alma fighting off a man who attacked her at her apartment complex gym.
  14. Tampa's Knight Parade is still on despite chances of rain and storms Saturday afternoon and evening. This photo shows the parade in 2013.
  15. Lockers are shown at Sunlake High School during the first day of school for Pasco County students in 2021 in Land O’ Lakes. A student has been arrested on charges related to threats made to the school.
  16. Briona Inman, 24, was arrested on a charge of soliciting or engaging in sexual conduct with a student by an authority figure
  17. A 30-year-old Tampa man was killed Sunday night in Hernando County when the driver of an SUV hit him as he was helping load a vehicle onto a car hauler, the Florida Highway Patrol reported.
  18. Michael Lapniewski, 55, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on Tuesday afternoon on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the 1987 slaying of Opal Weil.
  19. A pedestrian was critically injured Wednesday morning after she was hit by a Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority bus in downtown St. Petersburg, city police reported.
  20. Dandre McNeil is facing multiple charges in connection with two kidnappings and an attempted kidnapping in Hillsborough County this month.
  21. A bicyclist died after he was hit by a car on Missouri Avenue in Clearwater late Thursday afternoon, the Clearwater Police Department reported.
  22. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office was investigating Thursday after human bones were found near a homeless camp, the agency said in a tweet.
  23. Marquiel Lamonte Anderson, 23, was arrested on Wednesday on one charge of attempted second-degree murder and two charges of violating his probation.