CLEVELAND, Ohio – Attorneys for two Cleveland men accused of fatally shooting 10-year-old Gracie Griffin argued Tuesday that she was shot as the men fired in self-defense at a passing vehicle.
Cuyahoga County prosecutors said the men wildly overreacted to a threat that didn’t exist and sprayed bullets at their own friends who were arriving to their Fourth of July family gathering last year.
Half-brothers Juwone Deaver, 29, and Jemerious Davis, 24, were indicted by a county grand jury following Gracie’s death and charged with murder, felonious assault and other offenses in connection with the West Side shooting.
“This is a causation case. This is not an intent case,” Ben McNair, an assistant county prosecutor, told jurors in his opening argument.
McNair said Deaver and Davis, along with about 20 others, including Gracie, were at the holiday party at 3292 W. 125th St. when the men shot at a Dodge Durango with tinted windows that drove past the residence. The incident took place shortly after 7 p.m.
Unknown to the men, the Durango was occupied by four friends, including a woman who was nine-months-pregnant, who had decided to come to the party, according to prosecutors.
“They roll by the house once, fairly slowly, just to kind of look and see if this party is still going on. Looks like it is: people on the porch, kids in the front yard,” McNair said.
McNair said the men perceived the vehicle as a threat when it drove back past the house in search of parking. Deaver shot at the vehicle with a .45-caliber pistol that was never recovered, McNair said, while Davis shot at the vehicle with an AK-style rifle.
McNair said Deaver, who was “effectively (Gracie’s) dad or stepdad,” fired the round that killed her.
Steven Bradley, Deaver’s attorney, argued “that in some neighborhoods where gunfire is a more common occurrence,” a slow passing vehicle can be dangerous. He said a good friend of the defendants was shot in a drive-by shooting two weeks before Gracie was killed.
Bradley said the party’s atmosphere turned from fun and laughter to fear and panic in an instant when Deaver heard what he thought was a gunshot from the Durango.
“And then he fired several shots,” Bradley said. “And that’s when his brother came out of the house and fired additional shots – not haphazardly into the neighborhood – directed at the threat that was that Dodge Durango.”
McNair said there is no evidence showing anyone inside the Durango fired a weapon or even possessed a firearm.
“That is not correct,” Bradley disputed. “You will learn that it was not Juwone Deaver who fired the fatal bullet that struck Gracie. And, in fact, there was gunfire that came from that Dodge Durango.”
Deaver teared up and pinched the corners of his eyes when Bradley said Gracie was “like his daughter.” A woman seated in the packed gallery ran from the courtroom sobbing.
Cal Cumpstone, Davis’ attorney, called the shooting “an absolutely terrible situation.”
“But that’s not why we’re here,” he said. “We’re here to determine whether these two were justified (in shooting). And the evidence will show they were.”
Cumpstone said Davis had emerged from the bathroom at the party to see people sprinting into the house in fear of a drive-by shooting.
“He’s confused,” he said. “But then he sees his brother in the doorway, and he sees the look of terror on his brother’s face.”
Cumpstone said Davis quickly grabbed his firearm and heard a shot when he reentered the living room “behind his brother.”
“He sees Gracie get shot,” he said. “He sees his brother turn, fire and shoot at this Dodge Durango.”
McNair, who had anticipated a self-defense argument, said it’s not valid unless the defendants believed they were in a kill-or-be-killed situation and that it was objectively reasonable for them to believe it.
“(The Durango) is not a reasonable thing to be afraid of,” he said. “And here the force was extremely unreasonable. …
“How do we know it was unreasonable? We know it was unreasonable because none of their intended targets were actually struck.”
Two others were charged with lying to police about the shooting: Davis’ girlfriend, Katie McKnight, and Ed’Jawon Williams, who was inside the Durango when it was shot at.
McKnight has pleaded not guilty.
Williams pleaded guilty May 5 to obstructing justice, records show. He also pleaded guilty to felonious assault and intimidating a victim or witness in a separate case.
Common Pleas Judge Carl Mazzone sentenced Williams to a total of four years in prison, with the one-year sentence for obstructing justice to run at the same time as the other sentences. He ordered Williams to remain in the county jail, as he’s expected to testify in the trial.
McKnight was originally set to stand trial along with Davis and Deaver, but Mazzone severed her case from her co-defendants at the request of her attorney. She’s set for a pretrial hearing on June 11.
Deaver and Davis’ trial, meanwhile, is expected to last a couple of weeks.
