Dallas safety Keith Davis shot; `I heard a pop,’ Cowboy says

DALLAS _ Dallas Cowboys safety Keith Davis, 27, was recovering at a Dallas hospital Sunday after he was shot twice while driving along Interstate 635 early Sunday morning. The incident, which remains under investigation, marks the second time in three years that Davis has suffered gunshot wounds. Last time, before the 2003 season, he was cut from the team. Police said Davis was driving westbound on the highway near the North Dallas Tollway about 5 a.m. Sunday. A dark-colored vehicle with tinted windows pulled alongside his candy-apple red Chevrolet Impala with 22-inch rims, and someone inside shot at him and his passenger several times, leaving five bullet holes in the rear-passenger door and blowing off the inside door panel. Keith Davis “I was driving down 635 talking with a friend, and I had just passed a truck when I heard a pop and the back window shattered,” Davis said. “I just put my head down and mashed the gas and told my friend to get down. “Then I heard boom! boom! boom! boom! boom! It was so loud. I got on the tollway and drove about halfway to the hospital before I pulled over and let my friend drive.” At the time of the shooting, Davis said he was on his way home from Shreveport, La., where he had spent the weekend with friends and family. “I wasn’t going to go home, but I had missed church the previous Sunday,” Davis said, “and we’ve got training camp coming up and I didn’t want to miss another Sunday. We were going to get home in time to change clothes and head to church.” Davis said he was hit in the back of the head and in his right thigh but was able to pull the car over to the side of the road. His passenger, whose name was not released, drove him to RHD Memorial Medical Center in Farmers Branch. Davis was transferred later Sunday to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and is expected to be released on Monday. A bullet remains lodged in his right thigh. “They’re going to wait just a little bit before they take it out,” said Davis, “because they don’t want to take a chance that infection or anything else will set in.” Police said that he was in stable condition and that his injuries were not considered life-threatening. Police said Davis was able to answer questions as they investigated the incident. “We are trying to develop why this happened,” Dallas police spokesman Lt. Rick Watson said. “We don’t know at this time exactly what the motive is.” Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple said that the team was aware of the incident, but he declined to comment further. Watson said that while police were still working on a motive and suspects, they believed the incident might have been an attempted carjacking because Davis’ car was in excellent condition and had been modified. “Through the investigation, the victim has not indicated he has any enemies or has been in any altercations at this time,” Watson said. Watson said it was unclear where Davis was driving. He said police also were looking into the June 2003 case involving the Cowboy. In that incident, Davis was shot in the elbow and right hip outside a Dallas strip club. He said he was there to pick up a friend about 2:15 a.m. June 29 and was nearly run over by a car as an argument began. Soon thereafter, shots were fired. He later said that his girlfriend became involved in a dispute and he had tried to protect her. The Cowboys cut Davis on the first day of training camp the next month. The 2003 shooting came not long after a stern warning from then-new coach Bill Parcells to the team about avoiding off-field troubles. Davis re-signed with the Cowboys in January 2004. He was sent to NFL Europe and assigned to the Berlin Thunder for the 2004 spring campaign. He was named All-NFL Europe. That summer, during the 2004 Cowboys training camp, Parcells called Davis to the front of the team meeting room and had him show his teammates his scars as a warning not to get into trouble on their first night off of training camp. In April, the Cowboys matched a two-year, $3.1 million offer New Orleans made to Davis as a restricted free agent. It included a $1.2 million roster bonus. Davis, who was raised in Italy, Texas, started 15 games at free safety last year, his first season as a starter. He finished fourth on the team with 66 tackles and led the team with 16 special-teams tackles. He first signed with the Cowboys in 2002 as an undrafted free agent and played in eight games after a college career at Sam Houston State University. ___ (Dallas Morning News staff writers Jean-Jacques Taylor and Todd Archer contributed to this report. ___ (c) 2006, The Dallas Morning News. Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/ Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.