A former Arkansas deputy was convicted on Friday of negligent homicide and sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting an unarmed white teenager whose death last year drew the attention of national civil rights leaders.
Jurors acquitted Michael Davis of the more serious offense of manslaughter while finding him guilty of the misdemeanour charge in the death of 17-year-old Hunter Brittain during a June 23 traffic stop outside Cabot, a city of about 26,000 people roughly 30 miles northeast of Little Rock.
The maximum jail term that Davis, a former sergeant with the Lonoke County sheriff’s office, faced was one year. Manslaughter is a felony for which he would have faced between three and 10 years in prison.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Davis also was sentenced to a $1,000 fine.
Rebecca Payne, Brittain’s grandmother, said family members wanted the deputy convicted of the felony to ensure he could not serve as a law enforcement officer again.
“Now what’s going to happen? Are people going to have to fear for their lives again?” she told reporters.
Davis, who is white, was fired after the shooting by the Lonoke County sheriff for not turning on his body camera until after the shooting occurred. Davis’s body camera footage, shown at the trial, only shows the moments after the shooting.
Davis told investigators he shot Brittain once in the neck during the stop outside an auto repair shop after the teen exited his truck and reached into the bed of the pick-up while failing to comply with his commands to show his hands, according to the arrest affidavit.
Brittain was holding a container, which his family members have said held antifreeze, and no evidence of firearms were found in or near the truck, investigators said.
Brittain’s family members have said he was grabbing the container to place behind the truck’s wheel to stop it from rolling backward.
A passenger with Brittain said he and the teen had been working on the transmission for Brittain’s truck. The passenger and another witness testified they never heard Davis tell the teen to show his hands.
Brittain was eulogized last year by the Rev. Al Sharpton and two attorneys who represented George Floyd’s family.
They said the teen’s death highlighted the need for interracial support for changes in policing. Brittain’s family and friends have regularly demonstrated outside the Lonoke County sheriff’s office, demanding more details on the shooting.
Floyd died in May 2020 when a white Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin the handcuffed black man’s neck to the ground. His death sparked nationwide protests over policing and racial inequality.
