The Desire Terrorist

After Groves' killers crossed the Florida Avenue Bridge and disposed of the most incriminating part of the murder weapon, they returned to the Florida project area. At 11:10 p.m., Davis called Williams from the Downman Road bar he was hanging out in and told him, "Signal 30. NAT [necessary action taken]." He was referring to the Groves murder, which he had heard about minutes earlier in conversations with other officers investigating the murder scene. Several other calls, including one to patrolman Gary Washington, who was processing the scene, confirmed the identity of the murder victim.

In a conversation between Davis, Hardy and Williams at 11:22 p.m., a thumping sound was heard on the FBI tapes. Williams later testified that it was Davis striking the hood of the car joyfully with his cellphone, celebrating Groves' murder. "It's the [expletive deleted]," Williams was heard saying. "It's confirmed, daddy." Davis joined in and shouted, "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Rock-a-bye," an expression picked up from the movie New Jack City indicating a murder has been committed.

An hour and a half later, Davis was having a conversation with Williams, who was off duty at that time. They discussed the situation involving Williams' assault on Nathan Norwood and Davis vented his anger against IAD and the numerous citizen complaints against him.

At 1:19 a.m., October 14, two and a half hours after Groves' murder, Davis was still exulting and unrepentant. In a tape-recorded conversation with his girlfriend named Shantrice, he said, "Man, that [expletive deleted] was dead when she left the scene." An hour earlier, he had told Shantrice that it was Hardy's 27^th birthday "and he took care of that little business for me. I'm take care of that [expletive deleted] tomorrow." Davis reportedly paid Hardy $300 for killing Groves.

Three days later, around 9 p.m., Davis and Hardy had another conversation regarding the Norwood twins. Davis explained that neither of the twins appeared to be planning to report him and Williams to IAD and, since that was the case, "then we gonna let that go. . . . Long as that [expletive deleted] not tryin' to lie on me . . . we gonna let that s--- go. We ain't got no [expletive deleted] problem with em. But if I hear any [expletive deleted] thing come up about that s--- with them lies, then, hey, rock-a-bye baby."

Three days after that, Davis was on a cellphone conversation with Causey, telling him that the best time to commit crimes is during police shift changes. There is generally a 15-20 minute gap before the new patrol cars hit the streets. The nature of the crimes being referred to here was not specified, but authorities, piecing together clues, theorized that more turf war-related killings may have been planned.

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While all this was going on, the horrified FBI saw the situation they had created running amok. They had hoped to nail 20 or more officers on drug violations and now they had more problems on their hands than they had bargained for. Now there were murders to deal with, and the possibility of more to come. Ten months after it began, the decision was made to shut down the sting before it spiraled any further out of control before any more casualties could result.