{"id":43967,"date":"2025-11-18T19:18:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43967\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T19:18:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:18:19","slug":"today-in-history-november-19-jury-sides-with-drug-dealer-who-shot-six-police-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43967\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – November 19: Jury sides with drug dealer who shot six police officers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drug dealer shot six New York police officers on November 19, 1986, but got off on self-defence.<\/p>\n

Larry Davis was being hunted by police over the suspected murder of four drug dealers in the Bronx.<\/p>\n

Expecting him not to be compliant, 27 police officers went to his sister’s apartment, where he was staying.<\/p>\n

\"KidnapperKidnapper Larry Davis is escorted by police after his arrest at Webster Ave. and 183rd St. (NY Daily News via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“Come out Larry, you don’t have a chance, we’ve got you surrounded,” police said they called out.<\/p>\n

There is some debate as to who opened fire first, but in the firefight six police officers were shot and Davis vanished.<\/p>\n

Despite the building being surrounded, the suspect managed to escape.<\/p>\n

All of the officers survived.<\/p>\n

The shooting prompted a nationwide manhunt for Davis, and police set up roadblocks on bridges and tunnels to stop him leaving the city.<\/p>\n

Davis was on the run for two weeks before he was stopped at another Bronx housing project.<\/p>\n

After holding a family hostage for hours, he finally surrendered to police the following morning.<\/p>\n

As he was taken from the building in handcuffs, neighbours applauded and chanted his name.<\/p>\n

\"LarryLarry Davis became a Bronx folk hero after he shot six police officers. (New York Police Department)<\/p>\n

The reaction from neighbours was a surprise to people across America but not to locals in the Bronx.<\/p>\n

The borough had long been plagued by police abusing their authority and involving themselves in crime.<\/p>\n

In the high-profile case, Davis was charged with nine counts of attempted murder as well as a litany of lesser charges.<\/p>\n

But jury selection halted the proceedings. The defence accused the prosecution of seeking to exclude black jurors. The prosecution accused the defence of trying to exclude jurors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After 400 prospective jurors were interviewed with only six selected, the judge declared a mistrial.<\/p>\n

A second trial was aborted when the only white juror said they feared police retribution if Davis was found not guilty.<\/p>\n

At a third trial, Davis’ lawyers successfully argued that he was acting in self-defence.<\/p>\n

They painted the officers as being involved in the drug trade and seeking to murder him.<\/p>\n

The jury sided with Davis, and he was only found guilty of weapons possession charges.<\/p>\n

“They wanted him dead so he couldn’t squeal on them,” the jury’s foreperson told the New York Times.<\/p>\n

She described him as a “young and innocent kid who got recruited by a few corrupt policemen”.<\/p>\n

Davis was also acquitted of the murder of five drug dealers before he was finally found guilty for the killing of a sixth.<\/p>\n

By this point, Davis had become a folk hero as a Bronx local standing up against corrupt police.<\/p>\n

He was killed in prison by another inmate wielding a 23cm-long shiv in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drug dealer shot six New York police officers on November 19, 1986, but got off on self-defence.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-43967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}