Larry Davis assassinated in prison

“Just ask Larry Davis / how much they took / cops and crooks / but who’s the crook?”
—Jeru the Damaja, a popular New York rapper in the 1990s

In the yard of the Shawangunk Ulster County, N.Y., prison this Feb. 20, Larry Davis was murdered with a 12-inch metal blade. No authority has explained how a prisoner could conceal a weapon of this size.

The San Francisco Bay View national Black newspaper reported on March 5 that Black Entertainment Television had an upcoming interview with Larry Davis. BET produced the “American Gangster” series, which explored the connections between big-time crime figures, the drug trade and the police.

The BET interview and the murder in the prison yard—coincidence? Not!

Larry Davis had been a street guy and drug dealer in his early teens who later became a popular hero—size extra large—because he took on drug dealers in his community, both the ones in shiny suits and those in blue uniforms. He began as a runner for the police, a street seller of confiscated drugs. But the devastation brought to his Harlem neighborhood by crack cocaine wrenched his heart and mind.

He quit. In November 1987 when he was only 20, a squad of 27 police and detectives broke into his sister’s apartment, where he was staying, under the pretext he was a suspect in the killing of four suspected drug dealers. Six cops were shot and injured in the resulting shootout. Juries later acquitted Davis in both the drug dealer frame-up and in the shooting of the cops, which they ruled was in self-defense.

He made a movie-chase escape from the apartment and was a free fugitive until Dec. 6, 1987.

Larry Davis was finally captured and sentenced to 25 years to life in another case for allegedly firing a shot through the closed door of a drug den, killing a dealer inside.

Sewell Chan wrote that Davis became for some “a symbol of widespread distrust of the police,” but to others he became “something of a folk hero.” (New York Times, Feb. 21)

Barry Davis spoke about his uncle in an interview with the San Francisco Bay View: “Larry Davis is a person who went to war with the cops. He was a young guy ... took a couple of wrong turns, and tried to come out of it. And that was by defending himself, and he got it done.”

Former political prisoner Fred Hampton Jr., son of the martyred Black Panther leader, said: “Larry Davis was a victim who took the position that he was going to be a fighting-back victim. ... He moved in defense of his life ... and he still stands as a symbol of resistance.”

Betsey Davis Gimbel, a comrade in Workers World, in her own way and on a smaller stage was also persistent, audacious and fearless. She once let air out of the tires of a police car while anti-Vietnam war protesters were being arrested in Cleveland. She faked her way into a Republican gala and heckled Richard Nixon. After losing a leg because of vascular problems, she became a militant disabled activist.

She is also remembered for being the originator and leading activist in the Larry Davis Defense Committee, publicizing the case from her wheelchair. A small irony: Betsey reported that when Larry Davis arrived to serve the 25-to-life sentence, he was beaten so severely that he, too, had to use a wheelchair.

Betsey and her partner Mike had a collection of reptile pets in their Williamsburg, Brooklyn, loft. For 20 years their snakes, alligators, caimans and iguanas were a magnet for neighborhood children. Local schools sponsored many field trips to their loft.

In what the Gimbels saw as retaliation for Betsey’s work in defense of Larry Davis, their loft was raided, dismantled and their pets removed, one dying in the process. It was a small price compared to the 25-years-to-life sentence and execution in the prison yard paid by Larry Davis. But the raid showed the enormity of the hatred the state had for Larry Davis—a man of principle, defiance, courage and resilience. He fought the drug dealers and the cops for his people—and he died for them.