Renee Davis, a 23-year-old Native American mother of three young children and five months pregnant, was reaching out for help. On Friday, October 21, she sent a text message to a friend saying she was “in a bad way” and needed help with her severe depression.
Instead of finding that help, the young mother was shot to death by a King County sheriff’s deputy at her home on Muckleshoot tribal lands, some 20 miles southeast of Seattle.
Details are sparse since the King County Sheriff’s Office has declined to give much information. According to the Seattle Times account of the police version, two deputies went to Davis’ house to do a “wellness check” after the department received a call from the worried friend who Renee had texted.
According to the sheriff’s office, the two deputies knocked on the door, but there was no answer, though they could see two of Davis’ three children inside. The deputies say they entered the house and found Davis holding a handgun — both of them drew and fired their weapons.
Davis was pronounced dead at the scene. Neither officer has been identified by name — they have both been placed on paid administrative leave while the case is being investigated.
Danielle Bargala, Davis’ sister, says that she and her family have many questions. For one thing, Bargala said she was unaware that her sister owned a handgun, though Davis, a teacher’s aide for the Head Start program, was an avid outdoorswoman and hunter, and owned a rifle.
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The killing of Renee Davis is the latest incident in a string of police violence against members of Native tribes in western Washington. Like Davis, many of the other victims were suffering mental health crises, but rather than getting help from police, they ended up dead.
— In September 2015, Cecil D. Lacy Jr., a member of the Tulalip tribe, died in police custody on tribal lands outside Everett, Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle. Officers used a stun gun during the encounter with the 50-year-old, who…