PITTSBURGH — A woman shot by police more than a decade ago has died, and her death was ruled a homicide.
Lena Davenport, 61, was found unresponsive at her McKees Rocks home and died at an area hospital, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The office lists her cause of death as “systemic complications of a gunshot wound to the head” sustained in 2013 and the manner of death as homicide.
Davenport, then 49, was shot while a passenger in a car driven by her son, Donald Burris, then 32, in the early morning hours of January 2013.
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The vehicle was being chased after running a red light in Homestead. The chase ended on East Carson Street when five off-duty officers working a security detail shot into the car, hitting Burris three times and Davenport once in the face. A bystander was also grazed by a bullet.
At the time, police said their car was being used as a weapon and was a threat to the crowd of pedestrians leaving area bars.
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Burris spoke with Channel 11 back in 2013, and said he was trying to find a well-lit place to pull over and did nothing that would have justified officers opening fire on him and his mother.
In 2014, a jury found Burris not guilty of aggravated assault and other serious charges as a result of the incident; he was instead convicted on a lesser charge of fleeing from police.
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