The Chronicle
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The independent news organization at Duke University
MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2021
ONLINE DAILY AT DUKECHRONICLE.COM
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 18
A PUBLIC SAFETY SHOOTING Telling the full story of Danny Lee Winstead’s death, 38 years later By Nadia Bey University News Editor
Thirty-eight years ago, Duke public safety officers shot and killed a man in what was, according to Duke, the first death involving University officers. Public safety officers Lt. Edward Godley and Sgt. Gary Mitchell shot and killed Danny Lee Winstead near Duke Hospital North on the morning of Oct. 21, 1982. University spokesperson Don Seaver told The Chronicle at the time this was the first time a Duke officer “fired a weapon at an assailant.” Winstead’s story resurfaced ten years ago in relation to Aaron Lorenzo Dorsey’s death, and Dorsey’s death was in turn highlighted more recently in the demands from the student-led Black Coalition Against Policing. The Chronicle covered Winstead’s death after it occurred, mostly relying on reports from the Durham Morning Herald, but some details and witness accounts were absent. This article pieces together family interviews, news reports, editorials and medical documents to create a narrative of what happened on the day of Winstead’s death and in the aftermath. To aid in reporting, The Chronicle requested the autopsy and investigation reports for Winstead from the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on July 16, 2020. The Chronicle received a toxicology report Jul. 27 and the investigation report Dec. 16. The office informed The Chronicle Aug. 11 that it was “unclear” whether an autopsy existed for Winstead, but the investigation report states that “a more complete description” of the incident was included in the autopsy. Godley and Mitchell could not be reached for this article.
Courtesy of Sherri Winstead Danny Lee Winstead grew up in Roxboro, N.C. and was co-captain of his high school football team. After graduating, he enlisted in the Army.
Who was Danny Lee Winstead?
Winstead grew up in Roxboro, N.C. He was co-captain of the football team at Person High School, and he married his childhood sweetheart, Gladys Love, shortly after graduating in 1970. They were young, Love said, but she was pregnant and wanted her children to have a father. They had two daughters, Sherri and Dawn. Not long after graduating, Winstead enlisted as a U.S. Army private and served in Vietnam. When he returned from the military, the effects were evident. “He was having mental problems before he went to the military,” Love said. “But once he got out of the military, it became more severe.” Winstead seemed paranoid, according to Love. His mental health eventually deteriorated to the point where it hindered his ability to keep a job, and it was then that he began to seek help so he could continue to support his family. He tried “many, many, many times” to seek treatment at the Duke Veterans Affairs Hospital to no avail, Love said. She and Danny Winstead eventually separated when their daughters were young, according to Sherri Winstead. Sherri Winstead said that she had a good relationship with her father, although she was not as close to him as her sister had been. She was 11 when Danny Winstead was killed. “I remember when they came and got us from school after it had happened,” Sherri Winstead said. “The family being around, the sadness surrounding all of this, and the services.” Although Sherri Winstead knew her father had been shot, she didn’t learn the details of the incident until she was older. Despite not having a close relationship, she said she now understands what her father was going through at that time, and she feels his life was disregarded. “There’s so much that he would have missed out on, not being in our lives,” she said. “It’s definitely a loss.” At the same time, she doesn’t hold any anger toward Duke officers and believes they were genuinely acting in fear of their lives. “Of course I wish the situation was handled differently but I do recognize my dad was not in the right state of mind and was doing wrong to even have this situation occur in the first place,” Sherri Winstead wrote in a message. “I have always had sympathy for the officers as they have had to live with that event and the fact that they took a life.” According to the Morning Herald, Danny Winstead was a frequent visitor of the neighborhood where he eventually died. Several people who knew him wondered what happened and relayed positive statements about him to the Herald. One person remarked that “something or someone must have set [Winstead] off” the day of the incident. Gilbert Ragland told the Herald that he and Winstead had grown up together, and that
Courtesy of Duke University Libraries The front page of the Oct. 22, 1980 issue of The Chronicle, featuring a story about the shooting of Danny Lee Winstead by public safety officers Lt. Edward Godley and Sgt. Gary Mitchell. Some details and witness accounts were absent from The Chronicle’s reporting on the incident at the time.
they saw each other nearly every night. “When I went down there [that morning], he was lying in the parking lot,” Ragland said. Love said that it may have been hard for Winstead to receive help as a Black man, because they are often assumed to be lazy. “I don’t think he had a chance,” she said.
to the same report. Apart from budgeting and hiring, Dumas was also responsible for investigating internal cases, including complaints. Dumas died in 2001 at the age of 67, according to a Duke obituary from the time.
The Duke department of public safety
On the morning of Oct. 21, 1982, Winstead was observed striking vehicles with a twoby-four inch wooden board. Henry Bryant, manager of the Dutch Village Motel restaurant, told the Carolina Times that someone entered the restaurant and asked him to call the police because “someone was smashing car windows in the parking lot.” Public safety arrived at the area between
The department of public safety was the direct predecessor to the Duke University Police Department, adopting the latter name in June 1996. Public safety, previously known as the traffic and safety department, underwent its greatest expansion under Chief of Public Safety Paul Dumas, who arrived at Duke in late 1971. “[Public safety] was a good department when I came, but I made changes that fit my own style of administration,” Dumas told The Chronicle in 1984. Under Dumas, the department “more than doubled” in personnel and rearranged its priorities to focus on fire protection, rape prevention and “crime against property.” The traffic and policing functions were separated and a detective unit was formed. The department also expanded to include a division dedicated to protecting Duke Hospital North. At the time of Dumas’ 1984 interview with The Chronicle, the department had a $2 million budget, which he managed. The aforementioned report revealed that Duke budgeted just over $1 billion for traffic and security in the 1978-79 fiscal year, with 47% of the budget going toward Duke hospitals. Budget cuts were proposed in 1980 for public safety but deemed “undesirable”, according
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