Tampa Police spent about $50,000 in overtime during the 51-day Seminole Heights murder investigation, according to an agency spokesperson.

• Costs estimated at just under $1,000 per day
• Costs would have been higher without state, federal LE agencies' help
• Residents, business owners thankful

Those overtime dollars were used to beef up police presence in the neighborhoods, and for the 24-hour detective work that happened behind the scenes in their Joint Operations Center.

“Cost was not going to be a factor here,” said Tampa Police spokesperson Steve Hegarty. “We were going to invest and put in the time and do whatever we needed to do.”

Lajuanda Barrera, who owns Moates Florist, said the time and effort was worth every penny.

“It definitely made us feel safer knowing that we had direct access, that we could stop a few feet out the door and wave and see a police officer if we had to flag someone down,” Barrera said.

As the number of victims increased, police overtime increased.

By the time the fourth victim, Ronald Felton, was killed on Nov. 14, Tampa Police had devoted nearly 870 hours of overtime.

Graphic courtesy Tampa Police Department

Hegarty said all that hard work paid off when making the arrest.

“Once we had a suspect and we had the gun itself, we had to run some tests to see exactly what we had,” Hegarty said. “And we had so much help and had done so much work beforehand that I think that moved things along pretty quickly.”

With a 51-day investigation, Hegarty estimated the costs to a little under $1,000 a day. He said the overtime hours could have been much higher if it weren’t for the help of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.