Sarasota murders: double murder was 'a crime of blunder'

But despite speculation over gangs and its crime-ridden neighbourhood of Newtown, the city's deputy chief of police has said the incident was a one-off – a tragic case of unfortunate circumstances. Captain Paul Sutton, from Sarasota Police Department, said until the deaths of the British tourists in April last year, there had been no murders in Sarasota in 2011. In total, last year there were seven murders in the city – which has a population of around 52,000 but including tourists and visitors is around 100,000 on a day-to-day basis – and those seven included Mr Kouzaris and Mr Cooper. "This incident is not typical of Sarasota," he said. "When it happened on April 16 of last year, we had had no murders in the entire city prior to these two young men losing their lives. "This appears to be a series of unfortunate events."

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