Doubts, heavy police presence after report on Raleigh shooting

Moments after the Wake County District Attorney’s Office released its findings on the shooting death of Akiel Denkins on Wednesday morning, the police arrived in force in the South Raleigh neighborhood where the shooting took place.

They showed up in marked SUVs, two officers per vehicle, and commandeered the intersections leading to P.J.’s Grill and Groceries at Bragg and Mangum streets, where Officer D.C. Twiddy first encountered Denkins the morning of Feb. 29. There were two SUVs at some intersections, while an officer wearing mirrored sunglasses slowly drove through the neighborhood, barely acknowledging residents who sat on the porches or in front of the small, white-cinder-block convenience store.

Bishop Darnell Dixon, pastor of Gateway Bible Temple where Denkins’ funeral was held, said he was disappointed by the pronounced police presence in the neighborhood, noting that residents had been peaceful following the shooting and the subsequent investigation.

“They are more ‘policing’ than they are ‘personable,’ ” Dixon said, standing in front of a memorial residents erected outside P.J.’s in Denkins’ memory. “Where’s the smile? Where’s the wave? It’s like they’re expecting something that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a mindset. We have to arrest these policies that force people to become suspicious of those who are supposed to be protecting them.”

Asked about the police presence, Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said in an email: “The Raleigh Police Department routinely makes adjustments to its patrol activities to make the best use of available resources, that’s probably what you noticed today.”

Dixon, who called for calm after the shooting, was not alone in his displeasure over the police presence. Others who gathered at the memorial said it felt like the police were taunting the neighborhood because of the report’s findings. Two lit torches in front of the memorial flanking two signs bearing the slogans “A Drug Charge is not equal to a Death Penalty” and “Education not Incarceration.”

Dixon grew sarcastic. He wondered if the police department brass did not consider that people in the neighborhood were employed and were off working jobs instead of gathering to commit acts of disorder and civil disobedience.

“At this time, people are at work,” he said. “They (the police) precluded what the end result would be, and they are sitting out here, policing the air.”

Denkins’ sister, Shiquoia Johnson, 26, visited the memorial to her brother after the report was released Wednesday. Johnson moved away from the neighborhood about a year ago and passed the police on her way to P.J.’s.

“I feel like they’re antagonizing us,” she said.

Johnson said she now fears the police and is worried for her younger brother, who just turned 16.

“I’m scared for him. You don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I’m scared to call 911, and I just called the police last month. You think I’m calling them now?”

Johnson, like others gathered around the memorial , expressed doubts about the State Bureau of Investigation findings that Twiddy killed Denkins in self-defense. The report indicated Denkins was shot four times at close range with a .45 caliber handgun. They asked why it would take four gunshots to subdue someone who weighed 140 to 150 pounds.

Dixon said that a pattern has emerged where young people of color across the country are being shot with impunity by the police. Johnson agreed.

“They shoot somebody and then they get off,” she said. “They shoot somebody else, and they get off again.”

Dixon has considered similar cases across the country, where officer-involved killings of young black men are ruled justifiable homicides.

“Now that it’s happened in Raleigh, it’s a confirmation,” he said. “It’s a pattern that needs to be broken. I think that’s the dialogue that’s needed.”

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 6:34 PM with the headline "Doubts, heavy police presence after report on Raleigh shooting."