From The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... avis-deathShot three times by police, then isolated in hospital. Why was Kevin Davis's family barred from seeing him?
Kevin Davis was cuffed to an Atlanta hospital bed for the last two days of his life, and his family say they were denied visits – and kept from the truth about what really happened
Police in Georgia who cuffed a man to his hospital bed for two days after he was fatally shot by an officer have been accused by his family of barring them from visiting him to stop full details of the shooting from being disclosed.
Kevin Davis was detained at Grady hospital in Atlanta after being shot three times by a DeKalb County police officer, who was responding to a 911 call made by Davis and his girlfriend when she was stabbed by another man at their apartment in the suburb of Decatur.
His sister, Delisa, said she spent his final hours begging police to allow her to see him, but that they refused until he died. “They denied us access to him because they didn’t want him telling us what really happened that night,” she told the Guardian. In his last known remarks, Davis told a medic that an officer simply arrived at his home “and began shooting”.
Jeffrey Mann, the DeKalb County sheriff, said in a statement on Thursday that his department showed “appropriate compassion” to detainees’ families. “It is mandatory, however, that security protocol is applied consistently in order to protect the safety of both the inmate and the general public,” said Mann, who denied that his officers on duty had blocked relatives from visiting.
Davis had been arrested and charged with aggravated assault against the police officer, Joseph Pitts, because he allegedly ignored an order to drop a revolver he was holding. Davis’s girlfriend, April Edwards, said he grabbed the unloaded gun and approached their front door after their dog was shot and they feared that her attacker may have returned with a gun.
Pitts shot Davis in disputed circumstances. Police have said that Davis approached Pitts, who was in the corridor outside the apartment, shouting: “You shot my dog.” Pitts had shot the three-legged pitbull dead, later alleging it “charged” at him after he opened the door to Davis’s apartment. Police also said Pitts ordered Davis twice to “put down the gun”.
But according to hospital files obtained by the Guardian, after arriving by ambulance Davis told an emergency room medic in his last known remarks “that police came to his house after there was an altercation with his girlfriend and began shooting”.
His family’s attorneys said witnesses did not hear Davis say anything to the officer, and that the 44-year-old did not even make it past the threshold to his apartment. They said neighbours recalled hearing shots fired almost instantly after an order to drop the revolver.
Hospital officials confirmed that relatives were able to visit patients in custody if the law enforcement agency involved granted permission. The DeKalb County sheriff’s office, which was responsible for Davis during his stay in hospital, said it granted permission “in the most grave situations”, yet Davis’s family said they were refused access even as he deteriorated fatally.
In Thursday’s statement, Mann said his officers guarding Davis were not “asked by family members for visitation privileges”. Delisa Davis said she asked one officer via a nurse over telephone on 30 December and heard him advise her to call senior officers at the sheriff’s department, who did not return her calls.
Davis’s niece, Barbara Davis-Colter, told the Guardian on Thursday that she, her sister and father then visited the hospital and asked to see Davis, but were not allowed past the front desk on the floor where he was being held.
After being sent to a “detention” department, they asked officers to let them see Davis, she said. “But they said only DeKalb County officers could let us see him, and there were no DeKalb County officers there.”
Davis-Colter said that after returning to Davis’s ward, and being sent once again to the detention department, they were finally given a DeKalb telephone number to call, yet got no response. “We were blocked at every turn,” said Delisa Davis.
Despite being instantly paralysed by one of Pitts’s bullets, Davis was cuffed by his ankles to his bed to prevent a possible escape. “From the time I found out he had been shot, I was calling Grady, I was calling DeKalb County, and I couldn’t get anybody to give me a straight answer or let me see him,” said his sister. “They just gave me the runaround.”
Police have not said how many times he was shot. His sister said she was told by doctors that they had found three bullets in his body – one lodged in his spine, one in his stomach and another in an arm. Medical reports from the hospital detail five separate wounds.
Delisa Davis said that when she was told that her brother had “expired” on 31 December, a detective told her: “I guess you can go to Grady now.” She said: “It was just so callous, like they weren’t dealing with humans.” Davis’s case has only come to light in recent days after his family belatedly recruited attorneys.
Davis’s family initially said he had been handcuffed. Asked to confirm this, Mann first said in a statement that his department “routinely restrain arrestees, generally with handcuffs” in the interests of “the safety of the public and inmates” in their custody. In the later statement, Mann clarified following an internal review that Davis was in fact in ankle restraints.
“It is also our practice not to allow inmate visitation except in the most grave situations, and then with the confirmation of that condition by the medical professionals at the facility,” Mann said in his original statement. “Tragically, Mr Davis succumbed to his wounds while being treated at Grady Hospital.”
Denise Simpson, a spokeswoman for Grady hospital, said she could not discuss specific detention methods used on patients in custody “as procedures may vary based on patient conditions, medical treatments required, etc”.
“Grady policy requires that anyone wishing to visit a custody patient contact the appropriate law enforcement agency and obtain approval from that agency,” said Simpson. “That agency then notifies our staff if visitation is approved.”
This article was updated on 12 February 2015 to add a second statement from DeKalb County sheriff Jeffrey Mann and comments from Barbara Davis-Colter.
And then a followup the next day:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... -witnessesKevin Davis posed no threat to officer who fatally shot him, girlfriend says
April Edwards says officer ‘never gave him a chance’ as new investigation opened into death of Davis, who was shot by police at his apartment outside Atlanta
New witness accounts have challenged the official police version of how a man in Georgia was fatally shot at his apartment by an officer responding to a 911 call.
Kevin Davis did not pose any threat to the DeKalb County police officer who killed him, his girlfriend told the Guardian. Meanwhile, a neighbour said Davis was shot almost instantly after being told to drop an unloaded gun he was holding at his side.
“The officer never even gave him a chance,” his girlfriend, April Edwards, said on Wednesday, in her first interview since the shooting. “He was trying to protect his home, not hurt anyone”.
Amid protests on the streets of Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agreed this week to investigate Davis’s death separately from county authorities, who critics have accused of protecting their own officers.
Davis was shot by officer Joseph Pitts after approaching his front door when his dog, Tooter, was shot. Edwards said Davis grabbed an “antique-like” revolver, a family heirloom not used in decades, after they heard the shots at the front of the apartment from their bedroom, where he was tending to her wounded arm.
They feared that a roommate who had been sleeping on their couch, and who had stabbed Edwards during an argument and fled, had returned to the apartment with a gun, she said. “Anyone who had a firearm at that point would have done the same,” Mawuli Davis, the family’s attorney, said of Davis’s decision to head to the entrance with the revolver.
In fact, the dog had been shot dead by officer Pitts, 25, who was responding to the couple’s 911 call about the stabbing. Pitts later said he shot the three-legged, 12-year-old pitbull because it charged at him when he opened the front door to Davis’s apartment.
Cedric Alexander, DeKalb county’s public safety director, has said Davis ignored two orders from Pitts to drop the revolver while shouting “you shot my dog” and moving towards the officer, who was in the corridor outside the apartment.
Alexander, who is the president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and sits on President Obama’s police reform taskforce, said at a press conference that as Pitts retreated from shooting the dog he was “approached by Mr Davis”.
“[Pitts] observed a firearm in the hand of Mr Davis,” Alexander told reporters. “[Pitts] stated: ‘Drop your weapon. Drop your weapon’. Mr Davis did not adhere to his command.”
According to hospital files obtained by the Guardian, after arriving by ambulance Davis told an emergency room medic in his last known remarks “that police came to his house after there was an altercation with his girlfriend and began shooting”.
Edwards denies Davis said anything to the officer, and said that he did not even get past his front door as he went to find out who had shot the dog. A second officer on the scene, Michael Hill, said in a police incident report he found Davis “sitting in his doorway, holding his chest and saying: ‘I’ve been shot and can’t feel my legs.’” The Davis family’s attorneys said this further indicates he never made it past his door.
“There is no evidence, other than the officer’s word, that Kevin threatened him in any way,” said Davis, the attorney, who is not related to his clients. “No one else heard Kevin say anything or do anything other than trying to determine who had just shot his dog”. The attorney stressed that police had been told via radio that a man was advising the 911 dispatcher from the apartment, and so should have expected to be met by Davis.
After being shot, Davis was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on Pitts for allegedly ignoring orders to put down the wooden-handled revolver. Police have not suggested that Davis, who had no criminal record and no mental health problems, pointed the gun. His arrest warrant states he was charged for “refusing to drop the firearm that he was holding in his hand”. He was handcuffed to his hospital bed and died two days later on 31 December.
Alexander told reporters that after arriving at the apartment, Pitts, who is black, banged on the front door, but let himself in after getting no response amid “continual yelling and screaming” inside. Yet Edwards, 37, said: “There was no yelling. Kevin was trying to help me.”
She said the couple did not hear Pitts knocking or announcing his arrival as a police officer, and she did not hear Davis saying anything to Pitts. The Davis family’s legal team and police said that at least one neighbour does recall hearing Pitts knocking and identifying himself as police.
Alexander also said Edwards was already “yelling and screaming at [Pitts]” at the doorway before Pitts opened fire, according to an account of his press conference by Decaturish. But Edwards told the Guardian she only left their bedroom and remonstrated with Pitts after hearing Davis being shot and discovering him wounded on the floor.
“He said ‘they shot me, April’,” said Edwards, “and I started screaming at the officer ‘No, no! What have you done? Why? He didn’t do nothing’,” she said. Edwards said Pitts was outside in the corridor “still in his police stance”.
Davis’s legal team said a next-door neighbour, Naponica Patillo, told them in an interview that she had opened her front door to retrieve a grocery bag to find Pitts poised outside her door, about 10-15ft from Davis’s. “She says that he had his gun pointed in the direction of Kevin’s apartment,” said Rashid McCall, an investigator for the legal team, “and that it went ‘drop the gun-boom-boom-boom’ as he immediately fired, and then she quickly shut the door”.
Patillo declined to comment. The Davis family’s legal team declined to provide transcripts of their witness interviews while the county and GBI inquiries were active.
Davis was shot on 29 December. His case has only come to light in recent days after his family belatedly recruited attorneys. Police have not said how many times he was shot. After a state autopsy was conducted, Davis was cremated. His sister said she was told by doctors that they had found three bullets in Davis’s body. Medical reports from the hospital cite five wounds.
His relatives said they were informed that Pitts, who has no disciplinary issues in his personnel record, was placed on desk duty for two weeks but then resumed regular patrols.
Davis, the family’s attorney, said the case should be of concern to many. “People interested in our right to bear arms in our own homes should be upset by this,” said Davis, “people interested in stopping violence against women should be upset by this, and those of us who want to stop the killing of men of colour in this country should be upset by this.”
2 things:
1. So what's more a more likely story, that Davis pointed a gun at a uniformed police officer for no reason despite repeated warnings to put it down, or that a cowardly cop saw a black man with a gun and immediately opened fire while shouting "drop the gun"?
2. What kind of cowardly asshole shoots a 3 legged dog?
