Larry Davis Is Killed In Prison

A man who became a symbol of one of the city's bloodiest eras has been killed in an upstate prison where he had been locked away for two decades, state authorities said yesterday.

Larry Davis, who was accused of killing half a dozen drug dealers in a Bronx turf war and who rose to notoriety after he injured six police officers in a 1986 gun battle as they tried to arrest him for the slayings, died after being stabbed by a fellow inmate in a prison yard brawl on Wednesday in the Shawangunk Correctional Facility.

Officials said the fight took place at 7 p.m. during a recreational period in the prison's B block yard. The three prison guards stationed in the yard with the 22 inmates, including Luis Rosado and Davis, said they saw Rosado stabbing Davis with a 9-inch metal shank, according to officials.

Davis was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:46 p.m. with multiple wounds to his head, chest, arms, back, and legs, officials said.

Davis had been imprisoned for the 1986 murder of a suspected drug dealer. During his trial for the shooting of the officers, however, he rose to fame as a highly contentious figure reviled by police but venerated by some residents in the drug-ravaged South Bronx, who saw officers as the enemy.

Davis was acquitted on the charges of attempted murder of the police officers after arguing that he was being targeted because he had evidence of police corruption. He was convicted only on weapons possession charges. Mayor Koch, who said he had driven up to the Bronx on the day of the raid and stood outside during the shooting, said he was "not weeping" about Davis's death.

State police were investigating the motive for the attack yesterday, while state correction officials noted that Rosado had a long history of assaults on his prison record.