Richard Amey
Richard Amey, 34, is on trial on murder and other charges in the Feb. 24, 2016 shooting of 21-year-old Ladale Davis. Amey claims he fired the shots in self-defense.
(Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A videotaped police interrogation played Wednesday during a trial of a man charged with murder showed a Cleveland police homicide detective telling the accused killer that he "did what he had to do" when he opened fired on the victim.
"I don't think you had any other choice but to shoot him," detective Jody Remington told Richard Amey in the February 2016 interrogation.
The statement was played in the second day of testimony in Amey's trial on murder and felonious assault charges. Amey has said that he acted in self-defense when he shot 21-year-old Ladale Davis in February 2016.
The decision to play the statement, which showed a police detective agreeing that the shooting was in self-defense, was a gamble by assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutors Max Martin and Hannah Smith.
Investigators never found the gun used in the killing or eyewitnesses who could identify Amey as the shooter, so playing his admission solidified the fact that he fired the fatal shot into Davis' chest.
Playing the video allowed Amey's self-defense claim to enter into court without him having to take the stand and open himself up to cross-examination where prosecutors could poke holes in his story.
Both sides rested late Wednesday after Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman denied a motion by Amey's lawyer, Thomas Shaughnessy, to dismiss the murder and felonious assault charges citing a lack of evidence.
Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday morning. Amey chose to have Friedman decide the case rather than a jury.
Davis was shot about 3:30 a.m. Feb. 24, 2016 in the hallway outside his ex-girlfriend's apartment in the Garden Valley Estates complex. The shooting came an hour and a half after a bout with Amey that ended with housing security guards shooting Davis in the eyes with pepper spray.
Davis spotted Amey with his ex-girlfriend, Janice Gresham, and became upset, lawyers said.
Davis went to another apartment to clean up after the fight. He called Gresham and got into an argument before he went Gresham's apartment and waited for Amey and her to get there, prosecutors said.
The pair arrived about 3:30 a.m. and a confrontation ensued.
Davis tried to force himself into Gresham's apartment. She and her mother pressed the door shut leaving Davis and Amey together in the hallway. Within seconds, the women said they heard gunshots.
There are no security cameras in the hallway and no eyewitnesses came forward, so Amey's statement to homicide detectives is the only first-hand account of Davis' death.
At first Amey told Remington and Raymond Diaz that he didn't know Gresham and knew nothing about the shooting or the fight.
"Let's say for argument's sake that I would have shot the guy too, because he's huge," Remington said early in the conversation, pointing out that Davis was a half-foot taller and 30 pounds heavier than Amey.
Amey refused to budge. Remington told him several times that she thought he acted in self-defense, and told him that claiming self-defense could be the difference between being charged with aggravated murder and being charged with manslaughter.
"You know there ain't self-defense in Cleveland," Amey said.
Remington continued pressing him to admit that he shot Davis in self-defense. The detectives had already spoken to Gresham and her children who said Amey was there for the shooting, and it was time for Amey to "cut his losses," Remington told him.
"I'd be thinking the only thing I could was to shoot this guy, too," she said.
Amey finally gave in after 25 minutes, and said that Davis attacked him again in the hallway. He admitted that he fired two shots from a .45 caliber pistol when he got his arm loose, and that Davis ran into the stairwell. Amey then ran behind him, and out of the building. He said he took the gun apart and tossed some of the pieces into a sewer well.
Remington testified after the video was played that the suggestions were an interrogation tactic to elicit the truth out of Amey, who she said had told several lies to the detectives.
"Sometimes it helps someone to tell the truth when you give them the evidence against them and say 'I understand the situation you were in,'" Remington said.
Martin also pointed out that the video showed Amey made several false statements to the detectives, including that he didn't know Gresham, that he lost his cellphone at a bar two days before the shooting and that he didn't know where the gun was.
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