The father of unarmed Deshone Travis who was shot and killed by Port Wentworth police officers believes the officers murdered his son. The father, Robert Travis, was in contact with his son on a cell phone moments before the police gave the victim back his keys to vehicle. The victim apparently thinking he was free to leave property was then shot by officers as he backed down driveway to the street.
(Savannah, GA) Robert Travis doesn't understand why his son is dead. His 20 year old son, Deshone Lamar Travis was shot and killed by Port Wentworth Police early on the morning of June 26.
Port Wentworth Police Chief Matt Libby says his department had been asked to assist Pooler Police detectives on a robbery investigation they were conducting in Pooler at the Wendy's on Highway 80.
Libby said the investigation led to a home in Port Wentworth in the Newport subdivision. He says while there, police encountered Deshone Travis. Robert Travis told us he received a call from his son around midnight.
"He told me that police wanted to impound his car and it had something to do with a robbery. I told him I would be right there," Travis told us. "I was only ten minutes away.
"Everything was calm, no one was irate or anything," Mr. Travis told me. "So I thought I was just going there and to see what was going on with the car and talk to the officers and see what why they thought his vehicle was involved.
But when I got to the scene that was not the case. I came to see all the glass busted out of my son's car which in the street and I realize my son is in that car and I am asking what happened?"
Mr. Travis says he has no reason to believe his son was involved in the robbery in any way. "He had a good job (at the Dollar Tree Warehouse Distribution Center in Pooler) and was still hoping to go to college."
Mr. Travis said his son had just turned 20 in May and had graduated from Groves High School where he played sports. "He was a good kid, and I mean he looked like a kid so I don't know how these police officers could say they feared for them lives from him," Mr. Travis said.
"He went from being a kid that was not involved in a crime to being a robbery suspect, to being someone who was bad, and that's wrong, it wasn't true.
Algerene McKinnon, the man who lived in the Newport subdivision home told us he disagreed with the police assessment of what happened. McKinnon said police had indicated they wanted to search Deshones' car, but then gave him back his keys.
"And his dad was on the way," McKinnon said.
McKinnon said he thinks Deshone assumed he was free to go so he went to the car and was backing away. McKinnon said officers were not behind the car, but rather to the side on the grass. He said one officer from Pooler followed Deshone to the passenger side of the car after Deshone got inside the vehicle.
'He told him to get out but he didn't," he said.
McKinnon told me that when the car began moving, that's when officers began shooting from the grassy area to the side. He said on officer walked behind the car and fired. "Their lives were not in danger, the one guy actually walked behind the car," McKinnon told me.
Mr. Travis says the last words he told his son were
"I'm on the way." He says it's hard to comprehend what happened during the ten minute drive that led to his son's death. "the people at the hospital told me Deshone had been shot three times," he told us.
But he doesn't believe his son was at fault. It's clear what they did was wrong. So as far as I see it, these officers are responsible for murdering my son, that's how I see it," Mr. Travis said.
The GBI is investigating the shooting. Two officers from Port Wentworth are on administrative leave.
