Family doesn't understand why cops shot sword-wielding man on second-story porch

Relatives don’t understand why police shot a Kansas man on the front porch of his second-story apartment.

Kansas City police said 51-year-old Carlos Davenport charged officers with a sword after they were called Saturday night to an “armed disturbance.”

Officers said they found Davenport clutching the weapon on the porch when they arrived about 10 p.m., but they said he ignored their orders to drop the sword and charged toward one of the officers.

The officer fired his service weapon from the top of a flight of steps leading to the second-story balcony and killed Davenport.

Relatives said Davenport, who frequently worked with police as a tow-truck driver, was gentle and knew better than to argue with officers.

"For them to say that he grabbed a sword and charged the police is questionable," said his brother, Darryl Wayne-Bagley. "Very questionable."

His uncle said, based on a manhole-sized pool of blood at the doorstep, Davenport was about 10 feet away from the officer and separated by a banister surrounding the second-floor stairwell where police were standing.

"If the officer was threatened by the banister that's surrounding him from getting to my nephew from this puddle of blood, something is wrong," said uncle Otha Davenport. "I can't understand that."

The officer, whose name was not released, was placed on administrative leave during the investigation.

Police have released no details about the disturbance that prompted the initial call.

Watch this video report posted online by KSHB-TV: