Kevin Davis’s Girlfriend, April Edwards, Talks about Shooting
(APN) ATLANTA — April Edwards returned to Atlanta to tell the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) what she witnessed the night her boyfriend, Kevin Davis, was shot and killed by Joseph Pitts, a DeKalb Police Officer.
Edwards and Officer Pitts are the only witnesses alive who know what happened that fatal night. Up until this point, only the police perspective of what happened has been reported.
http://atlantaprogressivenews.com/2015/02/01/candlelight-vigil-held-for-kevin-davis-in-dekalb-county
The following narrative is what Edwards remembers of that tragic night and told at a press conference today, Friday, February 28, 2015. This is the first time her side of the story has been told.
On December 29, 2014, Edwards said that she and a roommate, Terrence Hilyard, got in a verbal altercation, and Hilyard stabbed her. When she called the police, Hilyard ran out of the apartment.
In the bedroom, Davis was administering first aid to her injured arm, when suddenly they heard three gunshots.
Next, they saw the dog, Tooter, limping to the bedroom.
“Someone shot my dog,” Edwards recalls Davis saying. The three legged pet dog did not bark at the officer before he was shot.
Edwards stayed in the bedroom with Tooter while Davis got his gun and went to the front of the apartment. According to earlier news reports, the gun was not even loaded.
“I heard three more shots shots and ran to Kevin. I saw him sitting on the floor slumped over,” Edwards said. The police officer was standing in the hallway outside of our apartment.
Kevin looked up at me and said, “They shot me,” Edwards remembers.
“Why did you do that,?” Edwards questions the police officer.
Then from shock, she blacked out and later came to with emergency personnel around her.
A reporter asked Edwards to tell what is the biggest discrepancy between her story and the police’s story.
“The police said they knocked and told Kevin three times to drop the gun. I would have heard if they had told Kevin to drop the gun,” Edwards said.
Unbelievable as it may seem, after shooting an innocent man the DeKalb police arrested the man they shot, for aggravated assault, and took him to Grady Hospital.
At the hospital, Davis was handcuffed to his hospital bed for two days. His family was not allowed to see or talk with him before he died alone.
Family members accused the police of not wanting Davis to tell them what really happened.
“They denied us access to him because they didn’t want him telling us what really happened that night,” Davis’s sister, Delisa Davis, told the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom.
In his last known remarks, Davis told a hospital medic that there was an altercation at his house and the police came in shooting.
“There are no case laws to support aggravated assault, if someone has a firearm in their own home but does not point that gun or does not threaten the officer,” Mawuli Mel Davis, attorney for the family, said.
Later with more information, the police knew that Davis was not the person who stabbed Edwards nor did he threaten Officer Pitts.
Why would they not drop the charge of aggravated assault or let the family visit Davis in the hospital? This is a question the family wants answered. He was critically injured, dying, and posed no threat to anyone.
“The arrest prevented the family from being able to find out from Kevin, in his own words what happened,” Attorney Davis said.
The GBI is currently investigating the case and will make its findings to the district attorney, who will determine if charges should be brought against the officer.
(END/2015)