Five bullets killed teen with machete

Five bullets killed a teenager after he charged at officers with a machete, the Gwinnett Medical Examiner's report released Wednesday on the death of the teen reported. 

On Monday, Dawntree Williams, 15, tried to attack family members with a machete, forcing them to lock themselves inside a room of their Windward Gate Lane home.

Gwinnett Police said two uniformed police officers arrived at the home and were immediately confronted by Williams. Witnesses said the 15-year-old “charged officers in a full dead sprint,” according to a police statement. When Williams refused to drop the weapon, officers shot him. The teen died a short time later at Northeast Georgia Medical Center.

Williams' grandmother said officers should be better prepared to deal with someone who is mentally ill.

"(Dawntree Williams had) ADHD, he's bipolar, he's schizophrenic," Anita Harris said told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.

She said she was trying to get her grandson help after a series of incidents.

"It is a shame that officers are having to intervene at the back end these situations," Bill Kissel from the National Alliance on Mental Illness said.

"It looked like the grandmother was looking for more services and that there hadn't been the level of response that was necessary," Kissel continued.
 
Kavanaugh obtained a chilling 911 tape from police that gives insight into the 20 minutes before Williams was shot by police. Harris said a therapist was in the home for a session with her grandson when he became violent. They called 911 hoping to get the teen admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

“Dawntree put the machete down, Dawntree stop, Dawntree!” the teen’s therapist yelled into the phone.

“He has a machete in his hand and he’s trying to hit us with the machete,” the caller told the operator.

“What is that noise? What is that noise?" the operator asked the therapist after a loud crash is heard.

"I'm sorry, what?" he responded.

 "What's that noise?" the operator said

"That's him with the machete," the therapist responded.

"I know you're telling him to put that down, but I don't want officers. If he comes with that machete at officers, it might be a different outcome. Tell him to please put it down," the operator instructed the therapist.

"We wanted to communicate with him," Cpl. Ed Ritter of the Gwinnett County Police Department said. "We wanted to de-escalate the situation, we were not given that opportunity."

Harris told Kavanaugh she doesn’t think her grandson should have been killed.

"He opened the door and they told him to drop it. He dropped it on the porch. The machete was laying on the porch," Harris said.

Police contradict that statement, saying that Williams charged at them with the machete when they arrived.

Harris told Kavanaugh she wanted to make it clear that she never felt trapped or held hostage by her grandson.

“He would not hurt anybody. He would have his moments, but he would not hurt you," Harris said. “Dawntree was sweet. He was kind. He was loving.” She provided Kavanaugh with a photo of Williams sitting on Santa's lap taken last Saturday.

A police spokesman said the officers reacted the way they are trained to confront deadly force.

Kavanaugh obtained police records showing that officers had been called to the home three times in the two months the family has lived there -- twice in October and once in November. Hall County officials said they responded to a medical call at the home last week.