CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — A man shot and killed by a Clay County deputy during a Department of Children and Families (DCF) visit on Saturday has been identified as a fugitive who spent over a decade evading murder charges in Mississippi.
Officials confirmed Monday that the deceased is 48-year-old Morris Anthony Davis. According to Ricky Smith, District Attorney for the 9th Judicial District of Mississippi, Davis had been a wanted man since late 2013.
“The murder took place in December 2013,” Smith told Action News Jax. “We obtained an indictment from the Warren County Grand Jury for murder and two counts of aggravated assault in May 2014.”
Davis reportedly fled the state before he could be arrested and remained a fugitive for more than 11 years.
The decade-long manhunt ended tragically on Saturday. Deputies were present at a local residence to assist DCF when deputies discovered Davis had an outstanding homicide warrant. According to investigators, the situation escalated when Davis armed himself with two knives and resisted being taken into custody.
Video from the scene captured Davis’s final moments. In the video, he can be heard shouting, “I give my life to the Lord,” and “Please kill me, I’d rather die than go back to jail.”
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office stated that deputies attempted to de-escalate the encounter, deploying Tasers multiple times. When those measures proved ineffective, Deputy Sheriff D. Brown fired his service weapon, killing Davis. In the video, you hear the gun got then a shot time after another one.
Davis’s brother argues that the use of lethal force was unnecessary, as his brother was on the ground and couldn’t get up because of his weight while being several feet away from officers.
“He was no harm to them,” his brother said Monday. “He couldn’t get up and launch at them, nothing.” He maintains that Davis was laying on the ground and several feet away from deputies when the fatal shots were fired.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the State Attorney’s Office have launched an independent investigation into the incident.
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