Investigation into a death threat aimed at one of Springfield Police Department’s
most outspoken officers wrapped up recently with no tangible results.
Since March, SPD’s major case unit has been investigating a threat reportedly targeting Lt. Rickey Davis, who is vice president of the Black Guardians Association and a plaintiff in a race discrimination lawsuit against the city of Springfield. The death threat was reported by his brother, former police chief Harvey Davis, in a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI subsequently handed the case over to SPD.
According to Rickey Davis, the threat was communicated to an ex-convict who became friends with Harvey Davis through church. This friend, whose identity SPD hasn’t publicly revealed, told Harvey Davis that he was approached in an East Side supermarket by two men he recognized from prison.
“They started talking about me, these two white guys, and they made the threats to him, and he reported it to my brother,” Rickey Davis says.
Having never met this friend himself, Rickey Davis questioned his brother about the man, and was assured the friend was credible. “Harvey believed [his friend], or he wouldn’t have did what he did. Harvey’s a very private person,” Rickey Davis says.
Just the fact that Harvey Davis called him indicates he took the matter seriously, as the brothers aren’t close, Rickey Davis says. “He had to call mom to get my phone number.”
SPD also took the threat seriously — “extremely seriously,” says Chief Don Kliment. “We investigated every possible lead,” he says. On March 4, Mayor Tim Davlin issued a press release promising to “not take this lightly, but instead investigate the issue to the fullest.” The story hit local media the next day.
The investigation was assigned to Detective Tim Young, who Davis acknowledges is a friend. But when detectives tried to find these “two white guys,” the investigation led only to dead ends.
Harvey Davis declined to be interviewed by SPD, saying that he had provided all the information he had in the letter. His friend did meet with investigators, and pored through photo albums without finding the men. SPD obtained video surveillance tapes from the supermarket and spent hours watching them, only to find nothing, Kliment says.
“The video did not show the encounter. It did not show the two guys,” he says. “We were unable to identify any suspects entering or leaving the store that matched the description of the white males. We checked numerous dates and times before and after the date identified in the letter [from Harvey Davis], as well as other possible weekend dates.”
Harvey Davis’s letter also mentioned a car of a certain make and color, although Kliment characterizes some of the information about the car as “inconsistent.” Nevertheless, SPD used the Secretary of State’s office to find every vehicle matching that description in two counties, and then cross-referenced that list with white males who had been incarcerated by the Illinois Department of Corrections. This exercise produced 34 possible matches, all of whom were eliminated, Kliment says.
He declined to estimate time spent on the investigation, but when asked if it could be 100 hours, responded, “every bit of that.”
Rickey Davis wouldn’t say whether he feels the threat was properly investigated. “I don’t know enough about it,” he says. “I just have to take their word for it. I’m not going to throw stones.
“I spoke to my attorney, and of course it’ll be reviewed legally. He’s going to ask for all the documents and all the investigation and that kind of thing.”
Asked if he’ll sleep better, knowing the supermarket encounter can’t be verified, Davis just chuckled: “I think I’d better keep my [fire]arms.”
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2004.
