He Was Looking For Trouble And It Found Him.

Raymond Davis knew that that some­thing would hap­pen to him. I don’t think he expected this though. After see­ing his girl­friend with a male friend and drink­ing heav­ily all night, he decided to do some­thing with a firearm. We will never know what exactly, but by wit­ness tes­ti­mony, I’m going to guess that he thought he would be going to jail for killing his girl­friend or the male friend, who lent her his coat.

He told Renzo later he had a gun. Just before Davis got ready to leave that night at about 1:30 a.m., he looked at Renzo and told him “It was nice know­ing you. I’m not going to see you for awhile.”

Renzo said he thought was the alco­hol talking.

Davis told another patron at the Rainbow Bar the same story.

After say­ing “it was a plea­sure know­ing you,” Brian Webb said Davis took his hand and placed it on the small of his back. Webb said he felt the out­line of a pis­tol¹.

Hamilton Police Officer Ross Jessop first noticed Davis after watch­ing two other police offi­cers ques­tion him con­cern­ing his girlfriend’s bat­tery cables being cut ear­lier in the night. The officer’s told him that they warned Davis about dri­ving because of the amount of alco­hol he obvi­ously had consumed.

Not long after­ward, Jessop spot­ted Davis’ Lincoln Navigator dri­ving north on Second Street. He pulled in behind and fol­lowed the vehi­cle as it turned on Adirondack Street. When Davis used a turn lane to drive straight through the next inter­sec­tion, Jessop turned on his lights.

Davis crossed the rail­road tracks on Fairgrounds Road and pulled over on a patch of dirt almost directly across from the fair­grounds entrance. Jessop acti­vated his spotlight.

And then the offi­cer saw some­thing that he’d never seen before dur­ing a traf­fic stop. Davis reached out and slowly adjusted his mir­ror so he could see the offi­cer. “That’s very unusual,” Jessop tes­ti­fied. “Our spot­lights are very bright and they hurt your eyes.” Most peo­ple imme­di­ately turn their mir­rors so the light is reflected away from their face. “At that point, I was caught off guard,” he said. “I approached with a lit­tle more cau­tion than I usu­ally do.”

Watch what hap­pens next.

What you saw is a .41 cal­iber revolver being pointed at the head of the police offi­cer. Davis pulled the trig­ger on an already fired round, just before you hear the offi­cer say “oh shit.”

Davis turned around and fired one more time. At that point, the offi­cer real­ized this was not some sick joke, pulled his Glock 22 ser­vice pis­tol, and fired 14 rounds [I hear 15, which the Glock 22 car­ries – Patrick]. Only one of those rounds hit Davis, in the back, but it killed him on the scene. He ended up dri­ving into an elec­tric pole [see the trans­former blow? – Patrick] where his body, and the revolver on the floor, was recovered.

I believe the only rea­son this offi­cer is alive today is that the ham­mer, of that revolver, found a used round. Had it not, Officer Jessop would have taken a .41 cal­iber, point blank range, to the face. Jessop notes in his court tes­ti­mony that he was more cau­tious because of the mirror-​spotlight inci­dent, but I don’t know that I see that in the video. He doesn’t appear to be ready for a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. He is sur­prised by the firearm. To me, he just did not seem to be in “con­di­tion orange.”

Here is the truth of the mat­ter, though, and I’m glad to see the issue resolved for the officer.

[Judge] Corn wanted [Missoula Police Department Lt.] Brester’s pro­fes­sional opin­ion: Was it nec­es­sary for Officer Jessop to shoot Davis?

“My opin­ion is that Mr. Davis pur­posely put his .41 mag­num into the face of Officer Jessop with the inten­tion of kill-​ing [sic] him,” Brester replied. “Officer Jessop had no choice but to respond with lethal force.”

The jury agreed unanimously.

h/​t Alan @ SnarkyBytes²

FOOTNOTES
1. Coroner’s jury rules officer’s shoot­ing of dri­ver was jus­ti­fied↑
2. Why Cops Hate Traffic Stops↑

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