Posted on 03/07/2009 7:23:40 AM PST by nmh
CLEVELAND — A man who killed himself a day after he killed his wife and four others told a judge in 2005 that he was ready to be a law-abiding citizen who would not let society down if he was released from prison.
"I swear to you from the bottom of my heart that I 'WILL NOT' let you down. Let my wife or children down. Let my family down. Let society down. Or especially, let myself down," Davon Crawford wrote to Cuyahoga County Judge Michael Russo as part of a motion for release.
...
"There was no standoff," Stacho said. "As they confronted him, he shot himself."
Stacho said officials believe a relative of Crawford lives at the home. He said an unidentified woman was found in another part of the home, but police did not release any information about her connection to Crawford.
Police Chief Michael McGrath said it appears that some sort of domestic argument sparked Thursday's shootings.
Besides Lechea Crawford, killed were her sister Rose Stevens, 25, and Stevens' three children: 4-year-old Destanee Woods and 2-year-old twins Dion and Davion Primm.
A fifth child was wounded and was being treated at MetroHealth Medical Center, which withheld the 7-year-old's name and condition at the family's request.
Two other boys in the house, ages 12 and 13, managed to flee unharmed and one called 911, officials said.
George Julien, 44, who lives across the street from the home, said he was stunned and upset at the shootings.
"I'm almost paralyzed. I'm almost not able to move right now," he said, sitting on his porch.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I have no doubt this is another Obama family values shooting - complete with lying about "change".
If only his last shot were his first.
What was an ex con doing with a gun? I mean they passed laws saying convicted felons are not allowed to own a firearm.(sarcasm)
“If only his last shot were his first.”
Yes, that is the sad irony.
That kind of “change” would have been positive.
Psychopaths can be quite persuasive, but this guy would have flunked the smell test for anyone whose judgment wasn't blighted with political correctness.
Only FEELING is permitted.
Well, LEGAL gun owners aren't supposed to have guns. When this happens then as if by MAGIC, the the ILLEGAL gun owners won't hurt you anymore and we'll all live happily ever after.
From an article in the Cleveland paper:
“Crawford’s 50-page motion for early release, filed in 2005, displayed flourishes of creativity and flair in a failed attempt to dazzle Russo.
He wrote that he had “used this period of incarceration as a time of inner-reflection, self-analysis and self-development.”
Davon Crawford’s violent life stretches back to his teens
Davon Crawford has been in trouble with the law since he was a teen. Below are some of his interactions with police, the courts and the prison system:
• Feb. 18, 1993: At age 16, Crawford is caught by Cleveland police joyriding in a stolen car.
• March 20, 1993: Now 17, he carjacks a woman’s 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier while wielding a black .45-caliber-style BB gun in Warrensville Heights. The same day he is charged with assaulting two Shaker Heights police officers with a car after trying to run them over.
• Aug. 12, 1993: He is sent to the Ohio Department of Youth Services. He is denied early release twice.
• May 24, 1994: Crawford, at age 18, is released from the juvenile prison.
• Nov. 24, 1994: He is arrested with a relative in a stolen car. Charges are later dropped.
• March 22, 1995: Crawford, 19, is arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Joseph Smith. He and Smith, 22, were arguing over a girlfriend. A plea deal dropped the firearm charges and Crawford pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to between five and 25 years in prison.
• April 3, 2000: At age 24, he is released from prison on parole.
• March 2, 2002: Crawford is arrested for shooting at his then-wife because she doesn’t want to go out for his 26th birthday. She was holding their child at the time. He is sentenced to five years in prison.
• Feb. 21, 2007: Crawford, age 30, is released from prison and placed on parole for at least a year.
• Thursday: Just days after getting married and celebrating his 33rd birthday, Crawford shoots and kills his new wife, Lechea Crawford, his sister-in-law, Rose Stevens, and her three children — 2-year-old twins Deon and Davion Primm and Destanee Woods, 5.
• Friday: Police find Crawford near West 128th Street and Linnet Avenue after a 20-hour manhunt. He shoots and kills himself.
Crawford said he had “received an insurmountable amount of love and support from his family and friends who would assist him in making his re-entry into society a successful one.” And he pleaded for a “second chance at living a law-abiding life.”
By all accounts, Crawford did take advantage of his years behind bars. He joined the NAACP, and completed classes on stress and anger management, family skills, domestic violence, child abuse and rage-control. He also tutored fellow inmates and won the Sportsmanship Award and championship trophy in the prison basketball league, according to 29 certificates filed with the motion.
“[I’m] becoming somewhat of a role model in the eyes of young fathers throughout the institution,” Crawford claimed in his letter to the judge.
Tragic for his victims.
Bet he didn’t even know his father ... he appears to fit the profile of the typical prison inmate. He was a ticking time bomb.
It's appropriate because our legal system has become a joke.
One can either laugh or become depressed - and I'm sick and tired of being depressed by the insanity that has washed over this once great nation.
Oh, and BTW, I’m from this area. W. 128 and Linnet is about a mile, or slightly less, from where I grew up (In fact, the police spokesman in the story, Officer Stacho, was a neighbor of ours)
It was a working class blue collar neighborhood, and used to be, ahem, non-diverse.People used to leave their doors unlocked. Last time I was there, a couple years ago, I noted the security company signs in front yards of small bungalows, the many unkempt houses, where they used to all be quite nice, and the security bars on doors and windows.
I’m glad they’ve made so much progress. It’s so much more vibrant now and the flava’s much more fresh.
He reminds me of the kid in Prince George’s Co., Md., who disarmed and killed two policemen in the processing area of the county jail, went to prison for several years, black people protested the injustice of him being locked up for killing two white cops, gets paroled in the mid-90s and goes and robs a bank and gets killed. Just another misunderstood youth.
“He is sentenced to five years in prison.”
He gets five years for shooting his wife, after being imprisoned already for voluntary manslaughter? Was the judge a Democrat?
I hear ya ...
It appears we’re going back to “let’s rehabibiltate and understand the monster”. “We have to stop this.”
That nut case that is on CNN ... Jane Valez Mitchell.
She’s such a freaking moron!
I had to llook up the proper spelling of her name and came across this:
WMC Daily News Brief: Jane Valez-Mitchell, Nancy-Ann DeParle, U.N. Women’s Agency
Posted by Rebekah on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
Filed in WMC Daily News Brief · Add a comment
A Fill-In On Cable News Is Thrust Into Host’s Chair
3/2/09
NY Times: Jane Velez-Mitchell is a true-crime author, a television talking head, a lesbian, an animal activist, a recovering alcoholic and a vegan. She was until recently a glorified freelancer for Headline News, the sister channel of CNN. Now she is one of Headline News’s nightly hosts.
http://womensmediacenter.com/wordpress/?p=623
She is SHRILL, DUMB beyond words and emotionally out of control. SHe truly doesn’t THINK.
How I came across her is by following Nancy Grace. SHe’s a mess too for other reasons ... but she might be wising up in some areas such as capital punishment. I’ve been following the Caylee Anthony situation ONLY because politics has become UTTERLY DEPRESSING and hopefully in the Casey Anthony situation there might be justice.
Tuning in slightly before Nancy Grace is how I came across this Mitchel freak. SHe’s such a loser.
The POS killed little kids, and you connect it to current politics you have no heart! Take it up with the system that let him out and that was in place for some time now.
Hell, look at Willie Horton.
He robbed a gas station, and stabbed the 17 year old kid working there 30-40 times and stuffed his body into a trash can to die. (That’s what he was arrested for in Mass. I’d bet he committed plenty more crimes)
After he walked away from furlough, he broke into a house, jumped the husband when he got home, stabbed him and tied him up. When the wife got home, he beat, raped and sodomized her. Then he ransacked the house, putting the stolen goods in the couple’s car before stealing it and driving away, which is where he got caught by the cops.
Then, they make it sound like the part about Dukakis furloughing him shouldn’t be brought up, and condemning anybody who would be so crass as to state the facts about this poor misunderstood soul.
In a good many ways, they were a lot smarter about things in 1909 than in 2009.....
LOL!
Idiots like you don't bother me at all.
This guy is a MODEL for “obama family values”.
They are constantly in trouble.
They vow to “change”.
They are lying about it.
Then they ACT on their disgusting views.
This one happens to be BLACK. Clearly whites voted for the Obomination too ... but YOU don't want to hear that ... anyway, this black guy vows “change” and then murders everyone he can get to. Just like Obama. He lies his arse off vowing “change” and then zooms in for the kill.
Don't give me your dammed “racist crap”.
You have “no heart” not to see what VILE PEOPLE YOU DEFEND. Does it make you FEEL GOOD to defend someone so VILE? Do you FEEL LIKE a HERO? A WHITE KNOIGHT IN SHINNING ARMOUR to DEFEND this VILE person by calling ME a “racist”? FEEL GOOD? Huh?
They SYSTEM failed arse***. That's the point. Obama family value driven people like YOU, still DEFEND the “system” and they try to lay some “racist” guilt trip on ME? No where did I state that I was happy he killed kids. You are the IDIOT. Go ahead DEFEND this Obama family values guy.
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