Bradenton man going to prison for shooting at cops. It wasn’t last time he reported phantom intruders
A Bradenton man with mental health issues and who was high on morphine, Xanax and marijuana and had drank half a bottle of wine called 911 on Feb. 6, 2017, to to report there were intruders in his house.
Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputies searched, but found no intruders.
Three hours later, he called again saying, “Shots fired,” before hanging up.
When deputies arrived back at his home, he began shooting at them and continued to even after they fired back and identified themselves.
Mark Anthony Davis Sr. claimed he didn’t know he was shooting at law enforcement and the incident still felt like a dream to him.
“I don’t think the evidence shows me that you intended to shoot a cop,” Circuit Judge Lon Arend said Friday before sentencing Davis to 15 years in prison.
“But how you found yourself in this situation is as befuddling to me as it is to you, and because of that the consequences that come with that are awful. You so easily could have been here on a murder of a law enforcement officer charge or manslaughter on a law enforcement officer charge.”
Davis was found guilty by a jury in May of two counts of attempted manslaughter of a law enforcement officer. Judge Arend sentenced him on Friday to the maximum of 15 years per count. The sentences will run concurrently, not consecutively as prosecutors had requested.
It was not an isolated incident. In the months after his arrest in the case, while out on bond, the sheriff’s office was called to Davis’ home several times.
On Oct. 24, 2017, Davis again called to report that there were intruders in his home.
Deputies who responded were warned that there was an “officer safety alert” on the home. Deputies created a tactical plan to approach the home. Dispatchers tried calling Davis back on the phone repeatedly to ask him to leave the home before deputies would approach.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office helicopter was used to assist in confirming it was Davis who had stepped out of the home and that there were no signs of a weapons. Deputies with the Manatee sheriff’s office then approached and patted him down, before proceeding with their investigation.
When they interviewed Davis, he told deputies, “I saw an male in my room laying next to the bed. The room was a bit dark. I don`t know if he was black or white. I didn’t see what he was wearing and he then kicked the mattress and that was the last I saw the unknown person,“ an incident report states.
There was no evidence found of an intruder in the home.
Deputy Matthew Kenyan detailed how he felt Davis was maliciously taunting him and other deputies each time they were called back to the home.
“We have to respond lights and sirens to these calls, this puts society at risk,” Kenyan said. “It doesn’t matter if we were shot, there was a malicious attempt to kill us.”
Kenyan was one of the four deputies Davis shot at during the original incident. The incident has scarred him for life, he explained.
“If I were any taller, I probably would have been shot,” Kenyan said.
While Judge Arend believed that Davis had shown remorse, he agreed with the prosecutor “that voluntary intoxication is no defense.”
According to Assistant Public Defender Alison Cossetti Clough, Davis was suffering from depression since the death of his grandmother, who raised him, in 2014. Clinical physiologist Dr. Karim Z. Yamout testified that Davis suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, borderline intellectual function with an IQ of 76 and major depressive disorder since his grandmother’s death, in addition to his regular substance abuse.
Yamout agreed when asked by Cossetti if Davis was “out of touch with reality” on the morning of the shooting. During his own testimony, Davis admitted to always being armed and installing video surveillance in his home, which was left to him by his grandmother after her death, and that he would always stare at the monitors.
“Dealing with a death does not allow you to bring death to others,” Assistant State Attorney Charlie Lawrence said. “People do deal with death in different ways, but three years after this, is not appropriate or a reason or excuse to do this.”
