Friends, neighbors search for answers after officer's death

GRANBERRY CROSSROADS – Bradley Shaw stoops down in the gravel and feels the red sand at Granberry Crossroads, where Henry County Road 55 crosses Alabama Highway 134.
Shaw, a deputy with the Houston County Sheriff’s Department, surveys the quiet scene where his mentor, Headland Police Officer Dexter Hammond, was shot and killed less than 24 hours earlier.

“Dexter was my best friend,” said Shaw. “He taught me everything I know about law enforcement. He was a good cop and a good dad. A good husband ....”

Shaw’s voice breaks as tears creep from the corners of his eyes, hidden by dark sunglasses. “You couldn’t ask for a better man, and not just on a professional level. I loved him,” he said.
But questions remain the day after a Henry County man weilding a gun threatened a neighbor woman; shot and killed a local policeman; shot and critically injured a Henry County deputy; and held authorities at bay before being killed in a shootout with police.

After all, lives have been forever changed.

The shooting left Henry County deputy Ted Yost, 38, of Abbeville, in critical condition Saturday night at Southeast Alabama Medical Center. His condition is improving, officials said. Yost is alert and is writing notes to his wife.

As his wounds begin to heal, and others set about the task of burying their loved ones, questions remain about that Friday afternoon when the unthinkable came to this rural community about six miles east of Headland.

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By all accounts, Fred B. Davis, 53, stayed pretty close to his mobile home at 5501 County Road 55, located just south of the old Grandberry store, which has been closed for several years.

County registration tax stickers affixed to the outside of the house, show the trailer had been registered at that location since 2001. Neighbors say Davis bought the trailer and lived there alone.

In the side yard, Davis, a former groundskeeper at Wallace Community College, kept a horse. This part of the county is a mix of open pasture and farmland.

Good friend Gerald Granberry said Davis was a good neighbor, frequently transporting the 70-year-old to the doctor. Neighbors said Davis often waved when they passed by and neighborhood children often patted Davis’ horse.

Granberry said Davis helped him build a shed for his camper. The two often talked, either on the tailgate of Davis’ truck or on an old picnic table in Granberry’s yard.
“He was good as gold,” Granberry said.

But lately, there was a change in Davis. Several people said he was off his medication. Perscription drug bottles found at the scene showed Davis was on 60 mg. of Geodon, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“He may have been on medication and was off it, and that was the problem,” said Henry County Sheriff Will Maddox.

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Friday’s tragic events began about 2 in the afternoon when a neighbor woman seeking better cell phone service, drove up to the store to make a telephone call.

As she sat in her truck, Davis came up from behind, armed with a shotgun. He fired a round in the air and reloaded before he reached into her truck and removed some papers. The woman, law enforcement said, became more frightened after Davis told her to gather her family close.

“He said ‘Bad things are going to happen around Dothan,’” said Phillip Smothers, the woman’s husband. “He said, ‘You need to go. You need to get off this property right away.’”

Smothers said his wife telephoned him at work and when he got home about two hours later, the two of them drove up to the store, called law enforcement and waited.

Henry County Sheriff’s Deputy Ted Yost was first to arrive, with Reserve Officer Mickey Gillis.

“When he got there, he pulled in the front yard and got out to knock on the door,” Maddox said. “The man came around and ambushed him and shot three or four times with a shotgun. It looks like he hit him more than once in the shoulder, head and face area.”

Gillis, who lacked the training of a certified police officer, picked up the radio and sent out the ominous message: “Officer down.”

Law enforcement agencies from throughout the area responded as Yost lay bleeding and Gillis was penned down behind the deputy’s car.

Headland being the closest town, Hammond was the first to arrive. According to Headland Police Department Chaplain Andy Bryan, Hammond sought cover at the southwest corner of Grandberry Store and with shotgun raised, yelled “Freeze!”

“Before he could finish getting the word out, the guy had shot him.”

Davis had taken a position behind a brick pump house at the rear of the trailer. Authorities said he was moving from that position back to the other side of the trailer, where he was keeping an eye on Gillis.

Quitman County, Ga., officer Eddie Ingram and Abbeville Police Department Investigator Nowell Van Landingham took up a position on the front porch of a house just south of Davis’ residence.

The two peppered bullets toward Davis, who was shot and killed in the backyard, just beside a clothes line where a blue and white comforter swayed in the breeze. Davis was armed with a high-powered rifle and a shotgun.

“I got with the downed deputy and reassured him,” Maddox said. “I followed the ambulance and Ted was rushed right into surgery. We were worried about him losing his eyesight but he now has some vision in his left eye. He has none in the right.”

Maddox said Yost has had problems breathing from wounds to the throat, but he is squeezing his wife’s hand and writing some notes.

“He knows what happened,” Maddox said. “He is asking questions about what happened to the other officers.”

While Cindy Yost declined to be interviewed, she wished to thank the different law enforcement agencies that responded and the rescue workers and SAMC emergency room staff who, she said, saved her husband’s life.

“She sends her condolenscenses to the family of Officer Hammond,” Maddox said.

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“This is just a shock to me,” said Granberry who still calls Davis a friend. “He was a loner type man but I couldn’t have had a better neighbor.”

Granberry, who is hard of hearing, said he was asleep when the shooting took place. Granberry’s brother, James, lives in the next house over.

He, too, tried to make sense of Davis’ behavior – so out of context with the man he knew.

“He helped everybody,” James Granberry said. “I think he just snapped.”