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Flowers, small stuffed animals and a tight cluster of votive candles offered a silent tribute to the life of a Berkeley woman killed Saturday night in a controversial police shooting. 

Nearby, on a sidewalk leading up to the three-building apartment complex in the 1700 block of Ward Street, a white dry-erase board was filled with tributes to Anita Lee Gay from friends and family members. 

At its base, beneath the angrily scrawled “MURDERER!” was a photocopied image of Berkeley Police Officer Rashawn Cum-mings. 

Written over the image was a declaration: “Rashan (sic) Cum-mings shot my mother, 51-year-old Anita Lee Gay, three times from behind at her residence in front of her children! Also in front of neighbors and small children. We need justice!” 

The rage reflected in the tributes at the scene of Saturday night’s shooting has boiled over into legal resolve, and the family has retained noted Oakland attorney John Burris to represent them in a lawsuit against police. 

But Berkeley Police spokes-person Sgt. Mary Kusmiss is urging community restraint until her department and the Alameda County District Attorney’s office complete three parallel investigations of the shooting: one by the DA and one each by BPD’s Homicide and Internal Affairs divisions. 

Police were summoned twice to the Ward Street apartment building where Gay lived on Saturday evening. 

According to Berkeley police spokes-person Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, the first call came at 6:40 p.m. from an older neighbor who reported hearing yelling and “people ... breaking out glass over there.” 

The caller didn’t know who or how many people might be involved, Sgt. Kusmiss said. 

Three officers arrived at the scene, the first a minute after the call. Officers found broken windows at 1727 Ward St., Apartment B, which is next to Gay’s Apartment A in a two-unit building. 

Officers knocked on the door of the vandalized unit, but no one answered, so one of the officers left a business card and a note urging the tenants to call back if they wanted to file a report. 

Checking out the neighborhood for potential witnesses, officers found Gay walking down the street and questioned her briefly before leaving, Sgt. Kusmiss said. They found no one who reported witnessing events at the apartment. 

What happened next remains a matter of controversy. 

Police aren’t releasing many details of the second call, pending the completion of the investigations. 

The call came in through the California Highway Patrol, which receives 911 calls made from cell phones whose callers haven’t used BPD’s cellular emergency line at 981-5911. 

Sgt. Kusmiss said the caller asked police to come to 1727 Ward “for some type of domestic dispute.” Three units were dispatched, but Officer Cummings was first to arrive. 

According to the official statement by Sgt. Kusmiss, when the officer arrived, he was confronted by Gay, who was carrying “a large kitchen knife.”  

“The officer challenged her at gunpoint and verbally,” said Sgt. Kusmiss. “Two family members emerged from the apartment door. The woman turned her attention from the officer to the family members. The officer used deadly force as he felt there was an imminent threat to the lives of family members.” 

He then fired at least three shots; at least two struck Gay in the back. 

Shooting someone who is believed to be threatening the lives of family members is specifically allowed in the Berkeley Police deadly force policy, Sgt. Kusmiss said. 

But whether or not Gay was actually carrying the knife at the moment she was shot remains the issue of greatest controversy. 

Sgt. Kusmiss said statements provided by witnesses and family members corroborated Cumming’s account and evidence collected at the scene. But statements neighbors provided to the media have offered a conflicting version in which Gay had dropped the knife before she was shot. 

Sgt. Kusmiss said officers went door-to-door throughout the neighborhood after the shooting in a search for witnesses. The statements of witnesses, family members and others were similar to the officer’s account, she said. 

But Burris—who did not return calls from the Daily Planet—told Bay City News that Gay “certainly did not have a knife and did not present a danger to anyone.” 

Allen Jackson, president of the Berkeley Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called Thursday for the dismissal and criminal prosecution of officer Cummings. 

“I think he needs to be removed from his position and tried for murder,” Jackson said. 

In response to the police statement that the officer was acting in defense of Gay’s family, Jackson responded, “One of her daughter’s was grazed by a bullet the officer fired. He almost took out two.” 

The NAACP official said he had not talked to any eyewitnesses to the event, “but I am basing my statement on experience and what I know has happened in the neighborhood. It is the policy of law enforcement to shoot first.” 

Kusmiss said, “We recognize that whenever deadly force is used, there will be community feedback as well as criticism. We also recognize that the community is clamoring for more details so it can really understand what happened.” 

The sergeant said that officer-involved shootings were rare in the city, with the last incident in 2003 and another in 2000. 

She asked anyone who may have witnessed the shooting to call the BPD Homicide Detail at 981-5741. “We would like to obtain their statements and ensure that our investigation is complete,” she said. 

Following the shooting, Officer Cummings was placed on paid administrative leave, a standard practice among law enforcement agencies in officer-involved shootings. 

Meanwhile, friends and other South Berkeley residents have responded to the killing by creating the Justice for Anita! Justice for All! Campaign, and supporters were holding a memorial for Gray as this issue goes to press. 

Meanwhile, the Alameda County District Attorney is conducting its own investigation of the shooting. 

“We have an officer-involved shooting team that is normally involved when there’s a shooting,” said Deputy District Attorney Michael O’Connor. “They do a complete investigation, which is independent of the police investigation.” 

Gay’s family had left the apartment after the shooting. A neighbor, who identified himself as Ralph, said they were “staying somewhere in Oakland.” 

Ralph said he didn’t see the shooting, but only heard the officer’s gunshots from inside his apartment directly opposite Gay’s across the pathway leading into the complex. 

Ralph said Gay had been a good neighbor who sometimes helped as he did yard work and painting at the apartment complex. 

“She was a good person,” he said. “She seemed like a decent person, but I don’t know what went on inside the apartment. I know she drank a bit. I know she would have a few beers. But I never knew about her being violent. No, not to me. In my company, she was a very decent person.” 

Ralph said he was inside his apartment—which is directly across from Gay’s—and heard the gunshots but didn’t see the shooting itself. 

“You can see where it happened,” he said, pointing to the hole where a round from Officer Cummings’ semi-automatic pistol had splintered the door frame just inches from the front doorknob. 

One of Gay’s daughter’s also suffered a facial wound, which friends charge was a grazing wound from one of the shots fired by Officer Cummings. 

Sgt. Kusmiss said two ambulances were called to the apartment after the shooting, and said that the daughter did sustain an injury, though only further investigation would show whether it was from a bullet, debris thrown up by a bullet or from some other source. 

“And we may not know even then,” she said. 

Gay is survived by six children and grandchildren.