Hasnai Davis

Hasnai Lashawn Davis, a 15-year-old Black teenager known to his loved ones as "Poodie," was remembered as caring and the life of the party. He was the beloved son of Antoinette Glover and Terry Davis, a brother to Teranae Davis, Georgia, and Zion Glover, and the grandson of Rev. Phyllis Green, Bernard Glover, Barbara Davis, and Henry McCalvary. Friends recalled him as a loving "big bro" who is deeply missed. Hasnai was preparing to start his freshman year of high school in the summer of 2015, a future full of promise that was tragically erased in an instant.

On the evening of Thursday, August 20, 2015, Hasnai was with three other people in a parked car outside a Bojangles' restaurant in the 2500 block of Ashley Phosphate Road in North Charleston, South Carolina. They were listening to music when the joyful moment turned into a tragedy. In the backseat, 19-year-old Deandre C. Michael was handling a loaded 9mm pistol. As he was playing with the weapon, it discharged. A single bullet struck Hasnai, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, in the back of the neck.

Instead of immediately seeking help, the driver of the car sped away from the restaurant parking lot. As they drove, Michael threw the handgun out of the car window near Interstate 26. The driver eventually pulled into the parking lot of a hotel in the 7400 block of Northside Drive, where a call for help was finally made around 6 p.m. When North Charleston Police Department officers arrived, they found Hasnai grievously wounded in the passenger seat of the Ford Taurus. Emergency medical crews tried to treat him, but his injury was too severe, and he was pronounced deceased at the scene.

The initial accounts given to police by the car's occupants were inconsistent and inaccurate. At first, Michael falsely claimed that another car had driven up beside them and someone inside had opened fire, killing Hasnai. However, after being read his rights, his story changed. Investigators from the North Charleston Police Department worked the scene, taping off the vehicle and using K-9 units to search the area along Northside Drive. Their search was successful, and they recovered the 9mm handgun that Michael had discarded. Under questioning, Michael eventually confessed to the shooting, admitting that the gun went off accidentally while he was playing with it.

Deandre C. Michael of Summerville was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter. He appeared before a judge for a bond hearing the following morning. During the hearing, Michael told the court that the shooting was not on purpose. Hasnai's mother, Antoinette Glover, directly addressed him in the courtroom, questioning his actions. "Excuse me, what do you mean by on purpose, you're 19, my son is 15 years old," she said. "You are too old to not know how to pull the trigger, you know what you did." The family was adamant that the charge was not sufficient. "This is not an accident, this is not involuntary manslaughter, this is murder," Hasnai's grandmother, Phyllis Glover, stated after the hearing. A judge set Michael's bond at $250,000.

In September 2016, more than a year after Hasnai's death, Deandre C. Michael, then 21, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. A circuit judge sentenced him to three years in prison, followed by two years of probation. The charge carried a maximum sentence of five years. Michael received credit for the time he had already served in the Charleston County jail since his arrest. For Hasnai's family, the sentence did little to assuage their grief or their questions about why immediate help was not sought for the dying teenager. His mother had previously expressed her pain and confusion, saying, "I just want to know why?”

The case is now closed, with the legal proceedings concluded as of September 2020. Hasnai Davis was laid to rest at Sharon Cemetery in Ridgeville following a funeral service at the House of God. His memory is kept alive by his family and friends, who continue to mourn the loss of a young life ended far too soon by a senseless act of negligence.