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E N Q U I R E R   L O C A L   N E W S   C O V E R A G E
Monday, December 15, 1997
Unraveling officers' last minutes
Various agencies will investigate shooting deaths

BY KRISTEN DELGUZZI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Alonzo Davenport was the only person to fire his weapon the night two Cincinnati policeofficers died.

But because the 20-year-old turned his revolver on himself minutes later, solid answers about how a suspected batterer and drug user managed to overcome two skilled officers are proving hard to come by.

To piece together the last minutes of the lives of all three, nearly every law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in Cincinnati is or will be probing the Dec. 5 shooting deaths of Officer Daniel Pope and Spc. Ronald Jeter.

pope
Daniel Pope
jeter
Ronald Jeter
The officers died in Mr. Davenport's Clifton Heights apartment, where they were trying to arrest him on a felony domestic violence warrant.

''There's a whole protocol that they follow in these type of investigations,'' Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said.

In several weeks, Mr. Deters will review the findings of Cincinnati police and the Hamilton County coroner.

''Every time police discharge their weapons or there is a use-of-force incident, I get one of these,'' he said.

The Cincinnati Police Division homicide section is handling the investigation and will document its findings in a ''shooting book,'' which will be turned over to Mr. Deters' office.

It will include accounts of officers who responded to the shootings, and the reports of three people in the apartment at the time of the shooting.

Marvin Jones called 911 to report two officers were dying.

A 14-year-old girl and Angela M. Mills, 23, both fled and are charged with failing to report a crime.

Coroner Dr. Carl Lee Parrott is nearing the end of his investigation. He already has concluded Mr. Davenport killed himself by placing the gun to his right temple and firing.

''It's a textbook - literally a textbook - contact-type of gunshot wound,'' Dr. Parrott said.

He also knows Mr. Davenport was the only one to fire a gun: Neither officer's weapon had been discharged recently, and Mr. Davenport was the only one of the three with gunshot residue on his hand.

What Dr. Parrott cannot yet answer is how close the gun was to the officers when it was fired.

He also is awaiting results of toxicology tests to determine whether Mr. Davenport had been using drugs or alcohol.

''We're closing in on it,'' Dr. Parrott said Sunday. ''We'll have it sometime this week. We're just waiting for the loose ends to wrap up.''

S Memorial page


 
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