Our latest edition of casting a uncompromising light on the soft underbelly of the sneaker landscape takes us to Columbus, Georgia where sneaker fueled stupidity ( and perhaps even judicial inequality) will cost a young man five years of his life.
Dayonn Davis was 15 when he pilfered a pair of sneakers from the owner that was trying to sell them on Facebook.
Those shoes will cost Davis, now 18, five years in prison and 10 years on probation.
According to the prosecutor in the case, Sadhana Dailey, Davis made contact with the seller after he saw them for sale on Facebook. A January 17, 2016 meeting at Columbus’ Shirley B. Winston Park was planned for the transaction.
At the meeting, Davis tried on the shoes. After seeing that the shoes fit, he allegedly told the seller, “These shoes is took.”
Another male that accompanied Davis pulled out a gun, causing everyone to flee.
Davis was quickly found by Columbus police, who discovered the stolen kicks in Davis’ closet.
The prosecutor said that Davis would not initially name the other suspect but he eventually identified him. Unfortunately, for Davis anyway, the victim was unable to ID the named gunman in a photo lineup.
This was an armed robbery. It’s not a theft. There’s a big difference between a theft and an armed robbery,” Dailey told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “The teen victim was robbed at gunpoint.”
Davis was charged with armed robbery and reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to robbery by force, which allowed him to avoid the mandatory 10-year sentence that comes with an armed robbery conviction, Dailey said.
Though he was a minor, and had no previous juvenile record at the time of the offense, was charged as an adult.
Dailey seemed to think he was deserving of a harsher punishment, saying “He got a break.”
Davis’ defense attorney Susan Henderson, said of her client, “He’s been extremely remorseful”and saying that he wants to puts the matter behind him and move on and that, “he’s got his life on track now.”
Henderson said Davis had been an A and B student at Kendrick High School prior to the arrest causing his grades to plummet. She also said her client had no idea the accomplice had a gun.
However Judge Bobby Peters seemed unswayed by words from Davis’ mother or Davis himself, who said he made an immature mistake and that he “was young at the time and not in his right mind.” His mother told Peters that her son had “been with the wrong person.”
However Judge Peters would hear none of their pleas responding: “maybe he’s the wrong person,” referring to Davis. “He’s the one with the shoes in his closet.”
It mattered not to the judge whether Davis intended for anyone to pull a gun because he arranged the meeting specifically to steal the shoes.
Peters also said that a teen with no record will go to prison- for a pair of shoes.
According to Dailey, no one else has been charged in the case and it is not clear if the person Davis identified as the gunman was actually involved.
