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Angry echo follows shootings
By LEANORA MINAI
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- Feltis Thomas pulled a handgun from his pants and fired because he was angry over being knocked down during a fight, police said. The bullet struck 16-year-old Jonathan Davis in his back as he ran away, killing him. Thomas, 18, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder Friday after his mother persuaded him to surrender. "I want to tell their family that I'm very sorry that it happened," said Thomas' mother, Debbie Reynolds, 45. "I'm so sorry." Reynolds' son is being held in the Pinellas County Jail without bail. She said her son didn't even know Davis, the city's 12th murder victim this year, who also is the youngest to die. His death, and a retaliatory shooting rampage that followed, brought resident Sharon Russ, mother of three, to the police station in protest Thursday. Sweat dripped down her forehead and neck as she stood, cane in one hand, sign in the other. "Why do we keep losing our young men?" she asked. "And when is the city ever going to address this problem?" At 1:50 a.m. Wednesday, Davis argued with men at the Marathon gas station, 1755 Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) St. S. Thomas was angry because Davis knocked him to the pavement during a fight, said homicide Sgt. Mike Puetz. Thomas then chased Davis across the street; Davis was shot outside a KFC. "The motive in this was probably rage more than anything else," Puetz said. Detectives were told Thomas did not know the bullet hit Davis. "According to him, he was unaware that he actually struck Davis," Puetz said. "Davis kept on running, and he presumed he had not hit him." A few hours after the shooting, unidentified men -- who presumably knew Davis -- went to a house in Childs Park. At 4:25 a.m., they fired more than 30 assault rifle rounds into the home. The assailants assumed a man inside the house was involved in the fatal shooting, police said. No one was hurt, but bullets narrowly missed several sleeping children. No arrests have been made in that incident. Police made a quick arrest in the Davis homicide, thanks in part to the suspect's mother. Thomas called his mother from Leesburg, where he had fled Wednesday. From their St. Petersburg home, she said, she told him to come back and turn himself in. "When I saw him, he just fell in my arms and he was crying, saying he was sorry; that he wasn't a killer," Reynolds said. "And he was asking me if God would forgive him." Thomas, who dropped out of Gibbs High School, does not have an arrest record. Davis had been arrested on charges of auto theft, burglary and robbery. His family could not be reached for comment. Davis' death and the Childs Park rampage infuriated Russ, who took it upon herself to stand alone outside the police station with a sign: "Stop The Violence" and "Protect The Children." Why aren't ministers, members of the NAACP and the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement protesting the shooting of Davis, Russ asked. She questioned why groups that advocate for African-American residents are quick to protest a white person shooting a black person, but are silent when black people kill other blacks. She ended up talking with Puetz, the homicide sergeant, for two hours Thursday. "It's scary to think we could walk out and get shot down, and so be it," said Russ, 40. "It's business as usual." The Rev. Manuel Sykes of Bethel Community Baptist Church said he did not know Russ was going to protest. He said he would have considered joining her if he knew about the shooting but had not heard about it. "I don't think there's enough being done by the religious community," Sykes said.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
