Family of slain 15-year-old grapples with grief after teen arrested for his murder

Wendy Davis only drove Uber 10 hours last week. She used to drive 50 to 60 hours, chatting it up with riders, but ever since her 15-year-old grandson was shot to death, she’s driven less, afraid she’ll collapse at the wheel.

“I didn’t work this week because when my mind gets wandering, I don't want to be driving somebody around and my mind goes to the left thinking about something with Erick.”

She doesn’t want to think about those last moments of her grandson, Erick Davis, who she helped raise.

Erick Davis was shot and killed at 4123 Third St. in Garden City. On Oct. 11, 9-1-1 received a report of a shooting and an unresponsive male behind the home of one of Erick's distant cousins. Garden City Police officers responded and found Erick suffering from gunshot wounds. Chatham Emergency Services transported him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Garden City Police then requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's assistance with the investigation.

Related: GBI investigating after 15-year-old found dead from gunshot wounds in Garden City home

On Thursday, Nov. 16, Garden City Police arrested 17-year-old Jaylen Griffin in connection to the murder.

Wendy Davis sits on her couch in her home on Garrard Street in Savannah. Pictures of her 15-year-old grandson rest on the fireplace. Wilting flowers sent by friends and relatives fill vases on a table outside the front door.

She wanders into her grandson’s old bedroom, which has been turned into a memorial, of sorts, for members of the family, who have suffered from multiple incidences of gun violence. Erick's cousin, James Ancrum Jr., was shot and killed one month before Erick, on Sept. 18, in the Pines Apartment Complex in Garden City. Erick's dad, Erick "Poosie" Lawrence, was murdered in 2017 in a double homicide in Yamacraw Village. He was just 25 years old.

Days before the arrest was made, Wendy Davis said, “I'm not going to let Erick's death just go in vain, or as a cold case. As long as I've got breath in me, I'm not gonna stop until justice is served for Erick. They're not gonna sweep my grandbaby’s death under the rug.”

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Father murdered when he was nine

Wendy mostly raised Erick.

Her daughter Shaketa was only 16 years old when she gave birth to Erick and was not prepared to be a full-time mom. After Erick’s dad was murdered, Wendy took on an even larger role in Erick's upbringing. She became stricter, she says. Tougher.

Still, Davis struggled with his dad’s death. He was close with his dad. In his room, he hung a t-shirt celebrating "Poosie" on what would have been his 30th birthday.

Erick's dad was the disciplinarian, and after his death, Erick didn’t have anyone to chastise him, to keep him in line. He became a troublemaker. Mostly, he struggled to contain his anger. On top of that, his classmates would bully him at school and in the neighborhood for not having a dad.

“He had trauma, his father was killed when he was nine,” said Wendy. “So he developed, you know, he had a lot of anger from his daddy being gone, and the kids teased him about his daddy being deceased. He had a lot of anger build up. And then he just didn't know how to calm it down fast enough.”

Erick, however, was, in many ways, a typical teenage boy. At times, he would get angry, but he had another side. He was ambitious, dedicated, even entrepreneurial. He would sell water bottles from dusk to dawn with his friends on Victory Drive, approaching drivers for a few bucks. When his friends headed home early, Davis would stay out there as the moon came up. Later, he would brag about his exploits, flashing his money on social media any chance he could get.

“He had a right if he wanted to take a picture to show off his money,” said Wendy. “He sat in the hot sun to earn his money.”

Trouble at Beach High

In ninth grade, Shaketa enrolled Erick at Beach High School.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that year, all classes were virtual. In 10th grade, he returned to Beach High, this time attending school in-person. He was smart, Wendy said, but he could have been honor-roll smart, if not for the “little silliness.”

In the second week of 10th grade, on Aug. 17, Davis saw his cousin fighting and jumped in to help.

“He was the protector, so he's not going to be with you and you get beat up, and just stand there and let you get beat up. He's gonna jump in and help you out,” said Wendy.

The school, however, saw the fight differently.

The day after the fight, Wendy and Shaketa had a meeting with the principal, who told them that Davis was suspended for the next 10 days, in what is called a "short-term suspension," and expelled for the rest of the year. He could return to Beach High School the next year, as a junior.

Wendy opposed the principal's decision, calling it a “regular fight."

“There were no weapons. No one needed hospitalization. This was just a typical boy fight," said Wendy. "The other fella started it; he swung on the cousin first, but none of that matters. Once upon a time, you investigated what happened. If you were the aggressor, you get suspended. Now it is, if you fight, you’re gone.”

As such, Wendy said she requested a formal hearing before the school board to overturn the expulsion. SCCPS policy dictates that the Board of Public Education is supposed to make a decision and give to the appealing parties within 10 school days after they received the notice of the appeal.

But that hearing never happened.

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Off to Building Bridges

Davis was suspended for 10 school days, until Aug. 31. On Sept. 8, Shaketa enrolled him at the alternative high school, Building Bridges. Founded in 2015, the Building Bridges High School Academy, housed at the old Scott Learning Center behind Woodville Tompkins High, serves high school students who have been suspended or expelled from high school.

That same day, Sept. 8, Davis was placed on probation for car theft.  As part of his probation, an ankle monitor was put on Erick. He was with a group of boys who took someone's car and he got caught with the keys, so he was charged by the Savannah Police Department, Shaketa said. "I got his probation to put [the electronic ankle monitor] on him cause he was coming in the house late and I didn't know where he was at," Shaketa wrote in a text.

That incident, Shaketa insists, didn't define Erick. He was young. He made mistakes. But in this particular instance, like the fight, he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although Wendy wanted him to return to Beach, she tried to remain optimistic. Maybe Building Bridges would be a good switch. Maybe they would keep a close eye on him.

“It turned out to be a bad thing because they didn't keep up with him,” said Wendy.

A typical school day at Building Bridges lasts from 7:40 a.m. until 2:40 p.m., according to the list of published and approved bell times for Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools.

After school, the students would normally wait in the basketball gym, the Davis family said. When a parent/guardian arrived, a school representative would call them over the loudspeaker. But, the Davis family believes that school let out at 1 p.m. on Oct. 11.

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Sheila Blanco, public information manager for SCCPSS, wrote in an email that Davis left Building Bridges "prior to regular dismissal." Staff was in place to supervise his departure from the school, Blanco noted.

"It is not uncommon for high school aged students to exit school at a time before the final bell with approval from school administration," Blanco wrote in an email. "Students may be leaving for scheduled appointments or other school-based activities such as work based learning or dual enrollment programs."

Citing the "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act," Blanco said she couldn't confirm whether anyone signed Davis out of the school on Oct. 11. "Any further direct questions as to why was he approved to leave at 1:00 p.m, is considered specific to that student and will not be released."

Neither school police nor school administration is investigating what happened to Davis on Oct. 11, confirmed Assistant School Board attorney Brian Dennison. But Blanco noted that since October, district administration has been conducting "an ongoing review of Building Bridges operations to account for site-based procedures involving all student movement activities."

The Davis family claims Erick's ankle monitor never alerted the probation officer he was leaving school premises. SMN has requested confirmation from the Georgia Department of Community Supervision whether Erick's ankle monitor was working and, if not, what could be the possible causes.

Erick Davis' final moments

What Davis did after he left Building Bridges remains unclear.

In Wendy’s mind, her grandson knew Wendy and Shaketa were busy, so he started walking to Westgate Apartments, where his aunt lived, because he thought she might be able to drive him home. But feeling tired about halfway through what would have been a two-mile walk, Davis stopped at a friend and distant cousin’s house. The way Wendy sees it, there were multiple people there who he thought could drive him to his aunt’s house, or maybe, if he was lucky, his home.

But when he arrived, he saw another teenager he had been fighting with over social media, which culminated in a death threat from the other teenager. Wendy said the other teenager had messages her grandson, “On site,” a ubiquitous term in rap music alluding to being in someone's crosshairs and immediate action upon seeing that person.

Neither Wendy or Shaketa confirmed whether the other teenager who issued the threat was Griffin.

The two argued for twenty minutes, Wendy said, based on information she gathered from others who were present at the house. Then the other teenager shot Erick, she said.

“He shot four times, so he meant to kill him,” said Wendy. “He had the gun in his pocket, his jacket pocket, he didn't pull the gun out, he started shooting from the jacket. So the people around, they didn't know where the bullets was coming from, so of course, if you hear gunfire, you're gonna start ducking.”

Family grieves again

While the family seeks accountability, they are also grieving. Like Wendy, Shaketa hasn’t been able to go to work, afraid of collapsing, thinking about Erick. Wendy doesn't want her to go to work at all.

Erick was frustrated, being the smallest of his friends and cousins. "Your time is coming, your time is coming," Wendy often promised him. “Now, it’s not because he’s been taken away. He was just starting to sprout.”

She doesn't understand why it took so long to make the arrest, but said Wendy, "Nothing will bring my grandson back, but you get a sense of relief knowing that what he did to Erick is going to be prosecuted."

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Garden City Police arrest and charge teen with murder of 15-year-old