Renee Davis, 23-year old Native American woman—who was also five months pregnant—was shot and killed by police in Washington State on Friday evening. The incident, which occurred on Muckleshoot Tribal Lands near Auburn, occurred after Davis reached out to a friend via text:
Davis, 23, had struggled with depression, and had texted someone earlier that night to say she was in a bad way, according to [her foster sister Danielle] Bargala. That person had alerted law enforcement, leading the deputies to arrive at Davis’ house on Muckleshoot tribal lands shortly after 6:30 p.m.
The Washington Post reports on the shooting as follows:
Someone had called to report that Davis, who was five months pregnant, was suicidal and armed with a gun, according to the Seattle Times. When deputies arrived to conduct a welfare check, no one at the house answered the door, the King County Sheriff’s office said. They knocked again. Nothing.
Inside, deputies could see two young children running around, the sheriff’s office said. When they entered the house, they found Davis with a handgun.
What happened next is unclear, but at some point two deputies opened fire on Davis, striking her at least once, the Times reported. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Seattle news station Q13 reported that the officers from King County “knocked on the door, nobody answered, they tried repeatedly to get somebody to come to the door, nobody did, but they could see the two kids running around inside the house. It was at that time that the two deputes made the decision to make a welfare check and go in the home. And thats when they saw the woman with a handgun. Both of those deputies fired shots at that woman and she was pronounced dead on the scene. Now we’re still trying to work out more details like how that exchange happen and if anything was said during those moments before the shooting happened.”
One thing that is striking is what is not mentioned in the reporting of this incident: exactly how did the officers enter Davis’ home? In other words, did they force themselves inside in order to effect the “wellness check,” then subsequently shoot Ms. Davis?
As reported by Daily Kos last week, American indian people are killed by police at a much higher rate than other ethnic groups in this country. We also know that people with mental illness don’t fare well either. Renee Davis reached out to a friend because of the way she was feeling and that friend, concerned with her well-being, called the police. More and more every day, it becomes more and more clear that calling the police for anything other than criminal matters is a cruel game of Russian roulette. But what has to become more clear for police agencies, who are admittedly not in the business of providing mental wellness, have to have some kind of mechanism for dealing with the issues they are faced with. The police only respond one way: with force if they feel a threat is imminent to them. Breaking into a single woman’s home is not on their radar as causing a threat to that single woman. A single woman in possession of a handgun at the time her home is violated should not be considered a threat to that woman. But that’s how it should have been viewed.
Something has to give.