Man pleads guilty to assault and burglary charges related to incident where deputy was shot at

By KSTP

Booking photo for Damon Davenport (Courtesy: Hennepin County Jail).

A man who was facing charges for attempted murder of a police officer pleaded guilty to assault and burglary charges after prosecutors say he was involved in a pursuit where police were shot at.

Damon Davenport Jr., 19, of Coon Rapids, pleaded guilty on Monday to first-degree burglary and second-degree assault related to the incident.

His sentencing is set for the afternoon of Oct. 3. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years and a $14,000 fine for the second-degree assault conviction and up to 20 years for first-degree burglary with a dangerous weapon.

The plea agreement shows he will likely be sentenced to 41 months, or a little more than three years, in prison.

Prosecutors say Davenport and his accomplice, Rashad Odell Collins, of Burnsville, fled from police and shot at pursuing officers after burglarizing an apartment in Brooklyn Center around 2:30 a.m. in September last year.

The criminal complaint states the victim told police that three people stole cash and other items out of his apartment near the intersection of 57th Avenue and Emerson Avenue North. The victim also identified two of the suspects as Collins and Davenport.

After identifying the suspect vehicle as a white Ford Fusion, law enforcement found a vehicle matching the description and pursued it after seeing it blow through multiple stop signs.

During the pursuit, the deputy reported hearing multiple gunshots. The chase then moved onto Lyndale Avenue and then to the eastbound lanes of I-94.

Court documents say that the deputy then heard another burst of gunfire and that a bullet hit the middle of his squad’s windshield, sending broken glass flying inside. The deputy then stopped to make sure his dog wasn’t hit. No one was injured, but the suspect vehicle escaped.

Police investigating incident on I-94 — Police investigate after a deputy was shot at on I-94

Investigators later found a 9 mm bullet under the deputy’s driver’s seat as well as five discharged .45-caliber casings where the deputy first heard gunfire and 19 discharged 9 mm casings near the second area he heard gunfire.

Court documents state that investigators later used surveillance footage and cellphone location data to determine Collins and Davenport were in the corresponding areas during the burglary and pursuit.

Davenport was arrested the next day as he left his girlfriend’s home. Police also found the Fusion abandoned near South High School the following day, and a discharged .45-caliber casing was found inside, as was Davenport’s DNA.

Collins was arrested a week later as he left his girlfriend’s apartment. A search warrant executed at his apartment then revealed some of the items that were taken during the burglary.