Fallen: Deputy Sheriff Wallace E, Davis

[Rebecca]

The tragic end of a long career... and a Deputies life...

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*Deputy Sheriff Wallace E. Davis
Clallam County Sheriff's Department, WA

Cause of Death: Gunfire
End of Watch: August 5, 2000
Date of Incident: August 5, 2000
Time of Incident: 1230 hours
Age: 48
Tour of Duty: 25 yr
Suspect Info: Unknown
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type

Deputy Davis was shot and killed after responding to a domestic disturbance call. Deputy Davis had responded to the call alone when he was shot in the head on the front porch of the house, where responding officers found him after neighbors heard the shots and called 911. The suspect then barricaded himself inside of the home.

Deputy Davis had been with the agency for five years and had been in law enforcement for 25 years. He is survived by his expectant wife, and three other children from previous marriages.

*as reported by the ODMP

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My prayers are with his wife... his unborn child... and his three living children... as well as his family of LEO's in Clallam County. This is a sad day for everyone.

Rest in peace, Deputy Davis.

http://www.officer.com/ubb/frown.gif

[officers_girl]

In yesterday's paper, they announced that they had caught the suspect in this deputy's death after a 25 hour standoff outside of Olympic Peninsula. No one else was inside the house, and no one else was injured.

[Pnutt]

Deputy Sherriff Davis was from my area, about 15 miles from where I live. We share the same last name but not related. Words cannot express the sorrow I feel for the families of all those who die in the line of duty, the silence of my heart speaks volumes.

Eternal rest grant unto you, Wallace, and let perpetual light shine upon you. May your soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Constance

[This message has been edited by Pnutt (edited 08-11-2000).]

[Pnutt]

PORT ANGELES: Deputy laid to rest
Friday, August 11, 2000

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By Austin Ramzy

The hearse held the flag-covered coffin of Sheriff's Deputy Wallace E. ``Wally'' Davis, who was shot and killed in the line of duty Saturday.


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PORT ANGELES -- As a knot of children watched from a grassy hillside, a pipe band and a riderless horse lead a dark hearse onto Civic Field.
"The citizens of Clallam County and the State of Washington owe Wally Davis and his family a debt we can never repay,'' Gov. Gary Locke told the crowd of more than 1,200 uniformed law enforcement officers and 2,000 others who attended the two-hour memorial service Thursday.
Davis, 48, was shot and killed Saturday while responding to a disturbance call in the Gales Addition neighborhood on Port Angeles' east side. His handgun was still in its holster when officers carried him off under shelter of a ballistic shield.
He was pronounced dead at 1:39 p.m. Saturday at Olympic Medical Center. The county courthouse clock has been frozen at 1:39 this week in his memory.

For the complete story see Friday's Peninsula Daily News, on sale in Clallam and Jefferson counties.

Constance

[Pnutt]

More than 3,000 pay tribute to slain deputy

Friday, August 11, 2000

By DAVID FISHER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER


PORT ANGELES -- A father. A fisherman. A cartoonist with a smile that could light up a room.

Ultimately, the 91st police officer to be killed on duty in America this year.

More than 3,000 people poured into Port Angeles' Civic Stadium yesterday to remember Clallam County Sheriff's Deputy Wallace Davis.

Davis -- "Wally," to everyone who knew him -- was shot in the face when he answered a disturbance call at the home of a mentally disturbed man Aug. 5. He died at the scene.

Davis had answered calls at the home before, where neighbors said his calming personality usually soothed the situation.


Lisa Davis, widow of Wallace Davis, is flanked by her mother, Patricia Kimball, and her daughter, Jessica Davis, as they follow the pallbearers carrying the casket.
See more images from the service.

Grant M. Haller / P-I

Hundreds of uniformed officers from departments all over Washington, Oregon and British Columbia made the trek to Port Angeles, many in their patrol cars.

Some felt their own mortality as the traditional riderless black horse, empty boots reversed in its stirrups, walked slowly across the stadium field, led by a 14-member bagpipe and drum corps.

"Your training basically takes over when a situation occurs," said Herb Crowe, a San Juan County sheriff's deputy. "But you think about this every morning when you put the uniform on. That this could be the day."

No one expected the day to come for Davis, a good-humored, devoutly Christian man. Friends and colleagues said he was uniquely equipped to handle the odd selection of humanity that police officers deal with -- everything from sociopathic thugs to medical traumas to people who just need an arm to lean on.

Vincent Giampa, the police chief in LaPalma, Calif., where Davis spent the first 16 years of his career, said Davis answered a medical call in his town several years ago. A man in his 80s had died of a heart attack.

Davis learned that the man's wife was virtually alone, and that her granddaughter planned to fly from back East to see her.

He drove to the airport after work, an hour away, picked up the girl and delivered her to the woman's house, Giampa said. He returned often after that.

"And he made sure her house was the first stop for his new trainees, to teach them what public service was all about," Giampa said.

Davis was on a 911 call at 1:39 p.m. Saturday when the fatal shot came.

The man accused of shooting him, Thomas Martin Roberts, 53, was apparently afflicted with a long-standing mental instability, court records and interviews with police and acquaintances indicate.

Roberts had been committed to mental institutions twice since 1996, prosecutors say, but not for long enough periods to endanger his gun ownership rights.

Court papers say Roberts shot Davis as the deputy stood on his porch.

He was arrested after a 25-hour standoff and is in the Clallam County Jail, facing a first-degree murder charge.

The pace of life appeared normal in Port Angeles yesterday, but something was tugging at people's hearts.

"God bless you, Wally Davis" said a sign at the IGS grocery store. "Let justice prevail."

Inside the stadium, civilians, including Gov. Gary Locke and Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., outnumbered the uniformed masses.

Many, like 15-year-old Joe Tisdale of Port Angeles and his aunt, Karla Nordquist of Umatilla, Ore., came to pay their respects to the police.

"This isn't the kind of thing that you think will happen in a place like this, that's this small," Tisdale said.

A devout member of his church, Davis was the author of published Christian detective novels, Clallam County Undersheriff Dan Englebertson said. Davis, who moved his family to Port Angeles five years ago, also was an accomplished cartoonist who loved to take jibes at his co-workers.

Davis' wife, Lisa, and oldest son both found "to do" lists in his belongings, the Rev. Michael Jones said. Lisa said she laughed at the first entries: "Hug wife. Kiss wife."

"She had written them there, just to remind him," Jones said.

Maintaining a rich family life can be a challenge, given the pressures of the job and the ever-present threat to life.

"I just have to make sure before I go to work that things are OK between me and my wife," Nick Letourneau, a Western Washington University police officer, said before the ceremony. "Because you . . . never really know when something's going to happen."

Lisa Davis leaned forward slightly from her front row chair yesterday as Clallam County Sheriff Joe Hawe handed her the flag that a State Patrol honor guard carefully lifted, then folded, from the top of her husband's casket.

She expects to give birth to the couple's fourth child, a girl, later this year.

To donate to a trust fund for Wallace Davis' family, call First Federal Savings and Loan Association at 360-417-0461 or the Clallam County Sheriff's Department at 360-417-2261.

Constance

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[Pnutt]

UPDATE:

PENINSULA: Accused cop killer now in unit for criminally insane
Tuesday, August 15, 2000

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By Paul Gottlieb

The evaluation will be used to determine if Roberts can be tried for aggravated first-degree murder, or whether he will be declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.


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One day after the last bell tolled for Wally Davis, his accused killer arrived at Western State Hospital south of Tacoma for a mental evaluation.
Thomas Martin Roberts, 53, on Monday began 15 days of intensive tests in the Aug. 5 shooting death of Davis, a 48-year-old Clallam County sheriff's deputy.
Roberts has a history of mental problems and was known in his Port Angeles neighborhood as a man given to shouting, pronouncing himself a deity and hearing voices.
Monday morning, dressed in his orange jail jumpsuit, the former telephone installer was driven away from Port Angeles in a marked sheriff's vehicle, jail Undersheriff Randy Smith said.
With Roberts were two officers as escorts for the ride to Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, a town of 5,700 south of Tacoma.
There Roberts will undergo 15 days of interviews and tests conducted by a team of psychiatrists and psychologists at the hospital's forensic services section.
That unit holds only the criminally insane. It accounts for 258 of the hospital's 908 patients.

Constance