Mother of fatal shooting victim says she warned son about violence just minutes before his death

Joseph Davis, 17, died in a shooting Tuesday night at Woodlawn Avenue and Garfield Street in Middletown, police said.

Joseph Davis, 17, died in a shooting Tuesday night at Woodlawn Avenue and Garfield Street in Middletown, police said.

The mother of the 17-year-old Middletown boy shot and killed Tuesday night said minutes before the incident she warned both of her sons about potential violence in the neighborhood.

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Quartura Davis said she told her boys to stay on the porch of their Manchester Avenue home.

“I had two visions of something happening to one of my sons,” Davis told this news outlet today while sitting outside her home. “Instead of it happening to him, it happened to the other.”

Joseph Davis, 17, died in a shooting Tuesday night at Woodlawn Avenue and Garfield Street, police said.

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“I said Jeremiah Joseph, ‘Don’t you go anywhere. Stay at home. Just stay at home. Let this stuff blow over. Stay here. You don’t have to go nowhere,’” Davis said.

As she gave her motherly advice, she said Joseph was “the only irate one” listening.

The shooting may have been the result of “an ongoing dispute with Joseph and his friends and another group of young men,” Middletown Police Major Scott Reeve told this news outlet.

“I said, ‘Joseph put your pride to the side. This will get you hurt,’” Davis said.

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She gave her son more advice: “Warning comes before destruction.”

She went to sleep and her mother woke her up saying Joseph had been shot. When she got to Atrium Medical Center, her son was dead, she said.

“They said he didn’t have a chance,” Davis said.

She said she moved her family to Middletown to get away from violence in Detroit.

“I just want justice for my son,” she said. “That’s all.”

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