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FDLE: No Red Flags In St. Pete Shooting Investigation

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Javon Dawson, 17, was shot and killed by a police officer at a graduation party in June.

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TBO.com

Published: October 6, 2008

Updated: 10/06/2008 04:51 pm

ST. PETERSBURG - The local state attorney's investigation into the police shooting of 17-year-old Javon Dawson was complete and thorough, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded after an independent review.

No additional action is necessary, the FDLE said

Gov. Charlie Crist had asked the state law enforcement agency to review Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe's investigation after McCabe found that St. Petersburg Police Department Officer Terrence Nemeth was justified in fatally shooting Dawson on June 7.

Members of the black activist group the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement along with Dawson's family had long clamored for an outside agency to take a look at the shooting. They didn't want McCabe's office to investigate the shooting in the first place.

They said they thought McCabe was incapable of conducting an independent review because Nemeth, like all police officers, testifies on behalf of the state attorney's office in criminal cases and so a conflict of interest existed. At one point, they took a petition with 1,700 signatures to the state Capitol in Tallahassee asking that McCabe be removed from the case.

The Uhurus could not be reached for comment. A telephone message left at the Uhuru house in St. Petersburg was not returned. Maura Kiefer, a lawyer who has represented the Dawson family, did not return a call left on her answering machine.

Crist did not appoint an outside agency to look at the shooting, as the Uhurus wanted. Instead, he waited until McCabe was done, then had the FDLE take a look at his investigation.

In a six-page FDLE report released today, investigators said there were two shootings – the one in which Dawson was killed and one 2 1/2 hours earlier in which Dawson, Dawson's younger brother and a third person, Raynard Yates, had argued with a group known as the Fairfield Boys.

Yates said that in the earlier confrontation, at Sixth Avenue and 29th Street South, the two opposing groups had fired guns in the air, the FDLE report states. Another witness also said the two groups fired weapons in the 8:30 p.m. face-off.

The second shooting – at 10:45 p.m., roughly three blocks away – occurred at the Masonic Shining Light Lodge, 3101 Freemont Terrace, the FDLE report states. A crowd of people swarmed outside the lodge as a graduation party grew larger than expected. Six people called 911 as the crowd grew to about 250. Only 50 to 55 had been invited, the FDLE report states.

Officer Nemeth was one of seven police officers in the department's Operation Safe Summer who was instructed by a sergeant to help with crowd control, the FDLE report states.

Shortly after the officers arrived, gunfire erupted in the crowd outside, the FDLE report states. Nemeth, in a sworn statement to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office, said he saw muzzle flashes in the crowd, the FDLE report states.

Although it was dark, Nemeth told the prosecutor's office, he could make out an individual with a black shirt and blue shorts who had dreadlocks, the FDLE report states. Nemeth said he pulled his weapon and said, "Police, drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun," the report states.

The subject -- later identified as Dawson – ran away but looked back over his right shoulder and, with a gun in his right hand, pointed it and fired into the crowd, all the while holding up his pants with his left hand, the FDLE report states.

As Nemeth ran after him, Dawson looked over his shoulder and raised his weapon toward Nemeth, the FDLE report states. Nemeth fired once. Dawson continued running and again raised his weapon at Nemeth. Nemeth fired a second time.

Nemeth said he saw Dawson throw the weapon down and then fall into a front yard at 3167 Freemont Terrace S., where he soon was pronounced dead, the FDLE report states.

Investigators found a witness who said Dawson fired a gun at somebody who returned fire. The witness also said that after Dawson fired his weapon, the teenager started running and a police officer ordered him to stop, the FDLE report says.

A second witness recalled hearing an officer tell Dawson at least twice to drop the weapon and then heard more gunshots, the FDLE report states.

DNA traces found on the .38-caliber revolver Dawson reportedly had thrown down before collapsing matched the teenager's DNA, the FDLE report states. In addition, an autopsy by the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office found that the trajectory of Dawson's gunshot wounds supports Nemeth's account.

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