WEBVTT - #312 Guest Host Laura Nirider with Davontae Sanford 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 I'm Jason Flamm, you know. At Wrongful Conviction. We're so 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.640 proud to be a part of the evergrowing landscape of 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.639 true crime shows that revealed just how our criminal legal 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.440 system works and just how often it fails, and how 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:16.480 grotesquely in some cases it just collapses on people who 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.600 are innocent. And this week I've invited a colleague from 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.400 another podcast, a podcast that I really love, to bring 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.480 their own unique style to our coverage of yet another 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.280 insane wrongful conviction case. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.080 Late at night on September seventeenth, two thousand and seven, 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.640 five people on Detroit's East Side were at a house 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.760 party watching a football game on TV. Without warning, two 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.880 men burst into the house and shot the place up. 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.440 They killed four of the five people, but one woman 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.680 survived by hiding under a bed. One of the gunmen 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.320 found her there and told her to play dead. A 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.880 few blocks away, neighbors were gathering on the street, including 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:05.360 fourteen year old Davante Sandford. When police talked to DeVante, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.280 he told them that his aunt's boyfriend was a retired 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.560 homicide cop. So police asked Davante to help them with 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.679 the investigation, to tell them what he knew about the 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.959 people in the neighborhood. But in the end police forced 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.760 Davante to confess to this brutal quadruple homicide. He was 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.040 tried and convicted, then sentenced to thirty seven to ninety 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.560 years in prison. And remember he was only fourteen. In 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.520 this case, it would take a truly unexpected turn of 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.080 events for DeVante's innocence to come to light. This is 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:52.720 wrongful conviction. Hey guys, it's Laura and I writer and 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.880 I'm honored to be guest hosting this episode of Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.920 I'm the co director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.800 at Northwestern Universe. And if my voice sounds familiar, it's 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.080 because I've guest hosted other episodes of this podcast, and 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.600 I co host another series on this feed called False Confessions. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.680 Today's episode is one of the most important and shocking 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.240 cases of wrongful conviction that I know of, and I 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.120 am so honored to tell you the story. I'm here 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.959 with two very special guests, Meghan Crane and DeVante Sandford. 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.720 I'm Meghan Crane, I'm an attorney, and I'm the co 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.840 director of the Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.560 We are so excited to have you, and there's no 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.720 one in this world like DeVante Sandford. Davante, we are 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.079 so happy to have you here. Do you mind introducing 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:40.639 yourself to. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.600 How you doing. My name is DeVante Sandford. I'm a zannerie, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.400 I'm a son, I'm a father, entrepreneur and. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.440 All around amazing human being. We are so grateful to 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.799 have you here, Davante. You know your case. When I 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.960 think about all of the wrongful conviction cases that I've 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.440 worked on, that people like Megan, who's one of my heroes, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.079 have worked on, that all of us in this entire 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.200 space have worked on, yours is always the first one 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.880 that comes to my mind as one of the most 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:19.160 difficult examples of just sheer injustice. And it starts when 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.840 you're a fourteen year old kid living in Detroit, Michigan, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.440 on the East side of Detroit on Belin Street. What 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.320 was life like for you back in the day? 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:34.920 Back in the day, it was it was kind of hard. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.400 You know, I was going through a lot mentally, spiritually, emotionally, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.920 like the family dynamic was really wasn't there as far 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.240 as like a lot of support, you know, my mother, 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.600 like she was dealing with a drug abuse issue, So 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:50.520 like I had like a lot going on. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.000 Or Honesty, So you're living on Bilin Street. It's a 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.200 tough life. You're there with your mom and siblings. There's 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.960 drugs in the house. This is a in a tough 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.720 block in a tough part of Detroit. When do you 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:08.040 think back DeVante to yourself at fourteen, what did you 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:09.080 think your future. 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.800 Was going to be growing up? Like, I didn't hear 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.480 as often as I hear it now. I didn't hear 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.719 the word opportunity. I didn't hear a word growth. I 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.320 didn't hear a word future. I didn't I didn't hear 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.920 those type of words. You know, somebody would have asked 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.440 me what your future looked like when I was fourteen, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:26.960 I wouldn't have been able to even answer that. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.760 I can answer it now, but not back then. 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.760 So you grew up not hearing words like future and opportunity. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:35.479 What words did you hear instead? 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.920 Get rich and die trying, you know, hustle and no luck. 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.640 The East side of Detroit is like one of the 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.760 worstest parts of Detroit. Or Honesty, like very high crime rate, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.120 very very high crime rate, very high poverty rate, very 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.920 low rates when it comes to reading and education amongst 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.640 like the youth. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.840 And you know you're you're growing up at that and 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.720 you had a couple of extra obstacles, one in particular 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.360 that not every kid had grown up on the East 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.000 side of Detroit. I want to ask you if it's 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.200 okay about your site, because I know you've had some 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.160 issues with your site. Can you tell us about that. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.440 I'm partially blind in like one of my eyes. That 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:21.920 happened when I was maybe fourth fifth grade, and I 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.279 actually I had to scar corneal so I had to 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.760 get like I used to have to get surgeries. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:28.320 You know. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.400 At the time, I just felt like it was just 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:32.520 different things they was trying on me to see if 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.120 someone was going to work. 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.400 You know. It caused me a lot of like trauma. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.960 Just had the simple fact, you know, being in grade school, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.200 I then to go with where like eypatches, kids making 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.720 like jokes and stuff for you and stuff like that. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.800 So like that was very like traumatizing. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:49.960 I just got to ask you one other question about 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:54.440 who you were before this case happened to you. How'd 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.440 you spend your time when you want to have fun? 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:57.800 What'd you do for fun? 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.480 I was too busy trying to like look for food 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.400 to eat because I probably ain't eating like two days. 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.080 You know, I didn't really know too much of like 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.760 fun or enjoying myself or honestly outside and maybe going 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:17.719 to like a neighborhood like basement party. But it's like 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.000 looks coming dece even look at now, Like I didn't 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.880 know about opportunity. I know everything about opportunity now, I 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.279 didn't know about what a future looked like you asking 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:27.800 me that question. 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:29.119 Now, my future is very bright. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.240 Your future is bright, and I want to hear so 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.480 much more about that. But first I want to talk 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.120 about what you had to go through to get to 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.640 that future, right, what you had to go through to 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.880 get from being that fourteen year old kid on Beeland 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.280 Street to the man you are. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:43.560 Now. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.120 This is where I'm going to bring in your lawyer, 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.880 Meghan Crane. Megan, it's fantastic to have you here. Can 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.560 you take us back to the night of September seventeenth, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:59.640 two thousand and seven, which is when something pretty horrible 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:01.680 happened right around the corner from where Defonte lived at 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.559 the time that set a whole chain of events into motion, 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.080 almost unstoppably from the beginning. 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:12.680 So it's a Monday night, September seventeenth, two thousand and seven. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.240 It's around eleven thirty at night. I think it was 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.320 a Monday night football night. So a football game had 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:20.600 gone late and was wrapping up, and there are five 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.800 people inside nineteen seven forty one Runyon Street watching the 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:29.360 end of the game when two adult men multiple witnesses 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.080 report they're around six feet tall skinny, approach the house 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.760 with two guns. They start firing a lot of bullets 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.239 from the outside of the house into the front window, 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.680 and then they bombard through the screen and front door 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.160 of this house and just shoot up the living room. 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.440 They shoot all five adults sitting in that room, killing 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.800 four of them, including the owner of the house, Michael Robinson, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.400 a thirty three year old man who we now know 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.240 to have been a local marijuana grower and dealer in 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.360 the community, and four of his friends. Three of his 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.960 friends pass away, but one of them is shot a 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.120 couple times but escapes to a back bedroom. In that 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.200 back bedroom, Michael Robinson's seven year old son happens to 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.440 be asleep at the time, and the surviving victim hides 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.200 under his bed. She later reports that one of the 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.239 shooters comes into the bedroom and actually says play dead, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.240 be quiet, and so she survives, maybe thanks to those 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.240 words of that shooter. And as she's hiding in that bedroom, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.200 she hears someone in the basement of the house moving around, rustling, 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.000 a lot of activity down there, and then they say 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.400 let's get out of here, and they both flee the scene. 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.240 Multiple witnesses report only two people. One of those witnesses 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.960 is a man named Jesse King who lived across the street. 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.800 He was a chaplain actually for the Detroit Police. He 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.880 had firearms in his house, partially because of his professional position, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.600 and he fired back because he had heard the shots 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:54.680 and he saw these shooters fleeing the scene, and he 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.439 exchanges fire with the shooters. He definitively says these were 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.679 two men, and he describes their physical build, their height 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.360 in some detail, and the attire they were wearing. Meanwhile, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.439 as all this is going on, Davante lives just around 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.800 the corner from nineteen seventy forty one Runyon Street. As 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.000 he said, on Beelin Street, Davante had heard the commotion. 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.240 He heard that something was happening around the corner. So 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.880 it's late at night, he's in his pajamas. He comes 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.400 outside to see what's going on. 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.120 So I just want to be clear. So what you've 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.600 got here is a horrific act of bloodshed, but it 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.760 has witnesses and they all said the same thing, right, 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.440 They said it was two adult men, which is a 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.600 pretty good lead to go on. But the police goes 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.760 somewhere a little different with this. They go around the 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.160 corner to Beelin Street. How do the police get there 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.600 and how does this go down? When they start talking 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:49.160 to Davante. 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.319 My understand is the police were just canvassing the neighborhood. 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.800 There are a couple different officers out going down different 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.600 streets looking for anyone who has something to say, and 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.000 so as part of that canvas, they're walking by DeVante's 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.880 and they approach him to say, did you see anything? 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.680 Do you know what's going on? But things quickly evolve 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.400 from there and become much different than from that casual conversation. 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.480 Now, Davante, you are outside your house when this happens. 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.640 You're in your pajama pants, right, You're a fourteen year 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.640 old kid who heard the commotion, comes out like all 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.520 the other neighbors did, to see what's going on, and 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.720 the Detroit police approach you. What's going through your head 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:30.719 as they start to. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.400 Talk to you, not really like understanding what was going on. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.000 That whole little ordeal. It changed my life or honesty, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.280 I'll never forget it. And like they was asking me questions, 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.959 where I live, where I'm from, did I hear anything, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.240 did I see anything? I believe I had told him 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.680 I had just came from being with my auntie's boyfriend. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.840 He was a retired detective for the head of homicide. 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.920 They actually knew him, so they hopped on the phone 0:10:58.920 --> 0:10:59.840 and they called them. 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.080 He was like, yeah, you know, he just came from 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:03.959 being with me. I guess. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.360 They explained to him what had like the case they 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.559 was working on, the different things like that, and they 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.160 handed me the phone and he was like, look, these 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.240 is my guys, man, So if you know some helped 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.240 them out. I don't know nothing, but I They proceeded 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.400 to take me home and they had my grandmother signed 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.560 a waiver. She signed a waiver. From there, they took 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.280 me to back to the crime scene. But I'm not mistaken, 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.280 and they gave me a gun shop ballistics test. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.120 So Megan, I just want to make some sense of 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.199 what's going on here. These police somehow come across the 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.360 fourteen year old kid in the pajama pants right, who's 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.320 just as confused as everybody else in the neighborhood, and 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.960 ended up taking him into the police station for questioning 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.000 what's going on here? How did they settle on DeVante? 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.080 I'll be honest, I find it pretty hard to explain 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.840 even today, a decade more than a decade after this 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.320 and after spend many years working on this case, is 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.160 my best understanding of how this went down. I think 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.040 the police officers were doing this canvas of the neighborhood. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.800 They come upon Davante, they're kind of just asking him 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.199 the same general questions as anyone else. But when they 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.000 realize this Bill Rice connection and they get Bill on 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.200 the phone with Davante, and Bill encourages Davante to help 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.080 him out, cooperate, do what he can. That kind of 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.360 is the first domino to go that sets this sets 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.440 things in motion. At that point, they are looking for 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.080 someone who can kind of like tell them what's up 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.840 in the neighborhood, like who in this neighborhood has guns, 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.280 who in this neighborhood's involved with drugs? Who do you 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.760 think might be involved in this? And so Davante, because 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.040 he's just been encouraged to cooperate, says, sure, I can 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.160 kind of tell you who I know who has guns 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.640 or who's involved with trouble. You know, he was used 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.760 to being picked on and someone that when he got 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.400 positive attention it felt good and had a powerful effect 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.480 like any fourteen year old kid. So it felt good 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.439 to be needed by these police officers. And so they say, 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.360 can you show us? Can you give us a tour? 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.480 And so Davante gets in the car and kind of 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.480 shows them the way around the neighborhood. Things transpire from there. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:10.800 They take him to the high school. They sit in 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.480 the parking lot in the high school for a while 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.439 and try to get information out of Davante. They take 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.400 Davante to get some fast food. Davante just told us 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.120 sometimes he'd go two days without eating. They buy him 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.840 a burger and fries to entice him to share more. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.200 Give us more, tell us anything you can, and the 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.880 more juicy stuff, the more relevant information he can give 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.720 about drugs, guns crimes, the better. Maybe the more burgers, 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:35.760 the more fries you'll get. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.320 Right, be a hero. This quadruple hamas, I just went 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.840 down in your neighborhood, be a hero. But the thing is, 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.800 you know, Davante, they took you around the area, they 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.600 brought you the burger, they brought you back to the station. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.439 But at some point the tables turned right. They were 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.480 no longer looking for information. They were looking for you 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:58.400 to confess. Can you tell us how it came about 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.200 that you ended up confessing to committing this quadruple homicide. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:07.840 Honest answer. I wanted to go home. I was scared. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.880 They can't promise me that if I was hurry up 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.440 and get this over with, that's the quicker I can 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.760 go home. I was at a point I just I 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.840 wanted to be anywhere except for their. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.720 I'm fourteen, barely like experienced anything for real. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.920 And you know the promise was if I basically apply, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.840 and you know, I go through with this, you know 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:37.560 my reward was going home. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.280 Megan, Can you tell us a little bit more about 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.840 the interrogation when you've looked at it real eyes? How 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.800 long did it last? What kind of techniques were they 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.680 using against somebody as young and vulnerable as Davante in 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:07.840 order to get this confession? 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.480 Well, first, I think it's important to note that, I 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.720 mean this starts in the middle of the night. So 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.000 they have Davante, whether it's in the car, in the 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:17.960 parking lot of high school, or in the police station, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.960 from one am through up until some point the next 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.680 day eight to twelve hours for round one, and that's 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.080 only round one of multiple rounds that are to come 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.760 over the next twenty four to forty eight hours. In 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.000 that first round, they are playing the friend. They're buying 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.160 him the burger, they're buying him the fries. He goes 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.760 to the police station. He's playing on the computer. He's 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.200 looking on social media to help them find people to 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.320 show them pictures of the guns of the people in 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.680 the neighborhood who might have done this. And that's making 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.960 him feel important, and he has access to computer that 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.720 he doesn't always have access to at home. And at 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.280 the end of that, by the mid day the next day, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.320 when they bring Davante home, he has signed a handwritten 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.920 statement saying five kids from the neighborhood did this. He 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.960 names them Tone Tone, Tone loose. They did it with 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.440 five guns. He names those five guns a Mini fourteen, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.680 a handgun, a thirty eight caliber, an assault style weapon, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.800 and he tells a story that they met up at 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.720 a fast food restaurant earlier that day Coney Island to 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.760 talk about this. Davante was with them leading up to it, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.240 but he freaked out and he didn't stick around. He 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.680 went home and didn't go to this to run in 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.120 street with them, but he knows what happened. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.040 Do the police check out Davante's story. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.440 They do check out some of it, some of it 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.720 doesn't match, and they kind of proceed full steam ahead. Inexplicably. 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.520 They have five perpetrators versus the witnesses that Tay Too 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.320 h Okay, who cares ballistics from the scene, show definitively 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.200 that this gun was an AK forty seven and a 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.120 forty five pistol. There's no question about that. The ballistics 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.120 are not from a Mini fourteen, they're not from a 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.760 thirty five caliber, They're not from a handgun. They go 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.360 check out this fast food restaurant they supposedly met up 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.200 at the Coney Island that Coney Island is closed for 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.320 construction and has been for months. They check out the 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.200 people Davante has named Tone Tone Loas they go pick 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.000 up multiple of them, they question them that night. That morning, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.600 they're cleared by Alibis and they're let go, but it 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.600 doesn't take their sites off Davante. 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.040 The story is by this point riddled with errors. Right, 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.760 it's the wrong people, the wrong guns, the wrong place, 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.280 at this Coney Island restaurant that's closed. Nothing there makes sense. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.160 But the police still have you in their sights, Davante. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.360 They come back and get you right, and they bring 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.200 you back to the station, and that's when things start 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:39.040 to get even worse. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:39.639 Megan. 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.880 They question Davante again and tell us about the confession 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.560 that results after the second round. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.840 So they do take Davante home briefly. I think during 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.560 that time they're picking up Tone Tone loas the other 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.439 guys they're questioning them, and when they clear them and 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.160 they realize, huh, this isn't making much sense, they decide 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.479 we got to go get Davante again, so they go 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.160 pick up Davante's mom is home at the time. They 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.240 tell her, you know, we don't think your son's telling 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:06.680 us the truth. We need to bring him back in 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.080 and talk to him about this homicide. His mom says okay, 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.040 and she, as a mom, is you know, socialized to 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.840 do that encourages Davante to tell the truth, to tell 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.919 the police, and from what Davante has always told me, 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.840 things were dramatically changed from there. They had been his friends, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.240 they'd been helpful, they'd been encouraging before that. As soon 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.960 as he's back in the car, they are aggressive. They're 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.199 confronting him, they're yelling at him, they're telling him, we 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.119 know you're lying. And at this point there is a 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:38.560 very common tactic of lying to DeVante and using false evidence. 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:40.960 They had taken his shoes earlier when they had him 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.280 at the police station. They said, we tested your shoes. 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.280 You have blood on your shoes, so we now know 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.280 you were there. We know you did this, and we 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.240 know you're lying to us. So we don't want to 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.639 hear anything else. We just want to hear the truth. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:56.400 Tell us what happened. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.280 Wow, So I mean, Devonte, I'm just picture the mental 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.000 whirlwind that you must have been experiencing at this time. 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:06.680 After being picked up off the street in the middle 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.680 of the night, right after the shooting. What was it 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.000 like to realize that all of a sudden, these officers 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.439 who just a few hours earlier had been to your friends. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:16.960 What was it like to realize that they were coming 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:17.320 for you. 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:25.359 It was hell. It was very stressful, very traumatizing. You 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.520 feel hopeless in situations like that, right, because it's like, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:30.560 how did I get to this point? 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:30.920 Right? 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.320 I went from walking down the street to them showing 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.800 me pictures of like the deceased people, people who was once. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.200 Alive, not these people are deceased. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.280 Right, And on top of that, like everything was just 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.640 like happening so fast. 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:46.040 So it was you know. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:51.399 It was stuff that we shouldn't expect even the most 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:56.960 experienced adult to withstand, let alone a fourteen year old 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:02.280 kid who's by himself and scared. You end up changing 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.320 your story to try and please these guys, to try 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:07.520 and get out of there, to try and go home, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:13.480 like you were saying. And the story that it becomes 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:18.720 clear they want is a story where you were involved, where. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:19.000 You did this. 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.040 Can you tell us, Megan, what the final story was? 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.480 In DeVante's final confession. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.760 The final story Davante tells isn't that much different than 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.440 the original story he told that didn't make much sense 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.760 and didn't match most of the facts, except that it 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.719 now includes Davante as an active participant and as a shooter. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.000 So it has these four other people from the neighborhood 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.600 who we now know. Some of those names were given 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.720 to police by a witness that during that canvas that night. 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.320 It has these five guns that don't match the ballistics 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.119 of the scene, but it has Davante going in, It 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.119 has Davante doing the shooting, and then it has Davante 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.160 running away on foot from this scene to his house, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.760 which also doesn't match the evidence. And DeVante told police 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.560 he threw his Mini fourteen, which was the gun he 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.920 fired at the scene, into a vacant field on AT 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.680