Cop Out

On the raid video, the energy in the bunker is almost tangible despite the distant sound and shaky camera work. A diagram of the Davis house based on Chris Davis' description is drawn on the room's white wipe-off board; it will later prove to be incorrect. A list of paired names is written beside the diagram. Hill's is near the bottom, the usual place for the team medic.

Wallace is seen moving Hill to the point position. With so many rookies on this raid, he needs Hill, who has field experience, up front. According to pre-raid intelligence, Troy Davis was liable to open the door armed.

The "intelligence" was based on what Troy's cousin had seen two weeks earlier, just after Thanksgiving at his aunt Barbara's house. She'd called Chris, asking him to come console her angry, depressed son. Though a family feud over the death of Barbara's husband, Chris' uncle, had been raging for years, he agreed. Later, he would tell his father, Robert Davis, that he saw marijuana-growing equipment in Troy's closet. He said Troy offered to sell him drugs. Robert Davis sent an e-mail to the police reporting what his son had told him. The correspondence found its way to the head of the special investigations unit, Andy Wallace. They had a couple of phone conversations. He did a background check on Chris and verified with his father that he was employed. In Wallace's opinion, that made him reliable. Then, he took the evidence to municipal Judge J. Ray Oujesky, who refused to sign a warrant. In a deposition, Oujesky says he wasn't familiar with narcotics warrants and was unwilling to sign off on information given by a previously unused informant.

Oujesky said that because Davis had not given "reliable and credible information previously" he was having difficulty finding probable cause. But district Judge Sharon Wilson, whom Wallace approached next, didn't. As soon as he had her signature the morning of December 15, he called the team together.

When Hill crosses the Davis threshold, two stories begin: In one, Hill shoots an armed Troy Davis standing at the end of the hall before he has a chance to kill any police officers. Hill becomes the hero. In the other, Hill is startled by an unarmed Davis as he comes around the hallway corner into the living room and instinctually fires. Hill becomes the villain, a trigger-happy cop unwilling to admit that he fired without cause. There are thousands of pages of court documents and depositions that support both of these stories.

Supervisors knew, say the Hills, that Wallace, whom Allen "trusted implicitly," moved too swiftly in obtaining the warrant. They believe Chief Shockley knew Wallace relied solely on one man's word that Troy Davis was growing and selling marijuana. But if the police brass knew Wallace was lax, it became their responsibility. According to Linda and Allen, the solution was to place the blame on someone else. Instead of making it Wallace's problem and therefore Shockley's problem, the department placed blame on Allen for not being more careful inside the Davis house.

A couple of months after the shooting, Hill was working late at the department when Shockley asked him to come into his office. He'd just been at a City Council meeting and told Hill, "They're going to back you. Don't worry about that." Allen was confused. Why wouldn't they?

Hill says he asked Shockley why he wasn't allowed a uniform or to work his off-duty jobs, which was hurting his family financially. And why wasn't the department allowing anyone to talk to the media?

"'I'm the one that's getting the brunt of it,'" Hill says he told his chief. "'I don't see the administration taking it. You've already vilified me in their eyes, chief.'"

That, Hill says, is when Shockley "went off." "He said, 'You shot and killed an unarmed boy.'"

Hill says Shockley told him, "'Before this is done, it's going to cost you and me our jobs, and we'll be lucky if we're not in prison...You didn't give that boy enough time to put his goddamned gun down."

"'I thought he was just unarmed a second ago.'"

"'If he was armed, you didn't give him enough time to put his gun down,'" Shockley allegedly told Hill. And then, the clincher: "'You are a cold-blooded, bloodthirsty killer.'"

Afterward, Hill says, he was called in by Kitchens, who had an explanation for Shockley's behavior. Kitchens asked Hill what he would think if he knew that someone was taking a certain combination of prescribed drugs, including painkillers for a back injury. Hill looked up the drugs in his medic's manual and replied, "What you're describing to me is that the chief has a drug problem." Hill says Kitchens told him, "I think you deserve to know."

Shockley declined to speak with the Observer. He would eventually retire from North Richland Hills after being suspended without pay because of a DUI charge filed against him after he was pulled over for erratic driving. He has blamed his behavior on his medication. In depositions, officers would say Shockley's drug problem was an unspoken fact around the department. But there was plenty of strange behavior going around North Richland Hills.