Slain Pelham, AL, Police Officer Identified as Phillip Davis, Bart Wayne Johnson Taken into Custody

Janet Shan
Janet Shan, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Dec 4, 2009 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
Another police officer has been shot and killed. Are our police officers under siege? Phillip Davis, 33, was shot and killed just before midnight Thursday during a routine traffic stop that went terribly wrong. Bart Wayne Johnson of Kimberly is being held in connection with the shooting, Pelham police said. Davis had been employed with the Pelham Police Department for four and half years. He worked for the Calera Police Department before working in Pelham. Investigators are still trying to determine why Johnson, whose court records shows a string of traffic violations but no violent history, opened fire on a Pelham officer at 11:50 p.m. Thursday night. He has been charged with capital murder in the murder of Officer Davis. It is so ironic that his untimely death came shortly after the horrific shooting deaths of four police officers in Lakewood, Wa., at the hands of a violent criminal, Maurice Clemmons. Four days before his death he expressed sympathy for the "unseen victims" left in the wake of Sunday's fatal shooting.

The mayor of Pelham, the Shelby County district attorney and several other officials expressed sympathy in the loss of the officer. "He will be greatly missed," Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens said during an 11 a.m. news conference. "His family were christian people and they always brought a lot to this community. We will all miss Phillip. He was a great man."

A preliminary investigation shows that the officer was shot during an 11:50 p.m. traffic stop on Interstate 65. Part of the incident was caught on video tape. Police said Johnson left the scene and fled to the Inglenook area in east Birmingham, police said. Source: Birmingham News

Johnson and his brother, a Trussville police officer who was not associated with the shooting, were taken into custody by the Hoover Police Department at 1:45 a.m. today. This is a real tragedy and I am comforted by the fact that a suspect is in custody and not loose on the streets as cop-killer Maurice Clemmons was in the aftermath of the worst police shooting deaths in Washington state.

Published by Janet Shan

A freelancer writer who is currently working on her first novel, a mystery set in the hills of Montego Bay, Jamaica. Visit: blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com.  View profile

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