Still no motive in West Ashley shooting

Grace Beahm // The Post and Courier

Griffor family friend Richard Douglas had a moment of reflection Thursday as he collected flowers and cards that have been left on the front porch of the family’s Pierpont Road home.

A little girl lies wounded and the mystery around her shooting grows as new details emerge about a string of home invasions that have plagued a quiet corner of West Ashley.

Five-year-old Allison Griffor should be in kindergarten classes at Drayton Hall Elementary School. Instead she has been confined to a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, as doctors search for evidence that her brain still functions at all.

Allison had been sleeping in her bed at her family's home on Pierpont Avenue early Tuesday when someone fired a shotgun through the front door, sending buckshot through a wall and into her head. Family spokesman Richard Douglas said five or six pellets lodged in the girl's brain.

Charleston County detectives continue to investigate the attempted home invasion, but no arrests have been made, no motive offered.

Investigators also haven't found a connection between the shooting and two similar crimes in the area -- a break-in that same night on Catteron Drive and an home invasion involving a shotgun that occurred Saturday on Dogwood Road.

Allison's father, William Griffor, on Thursday issued a statement explaining what happened during the 1 a.m. attack at their home

Griffor said he, his wife and his three children had been sleeping when they heard kicking on their front door. "I ran to the door and was about to open it and yelled through the door," Griffor said. "Then there was a blast through the door."

He said he told his wife, Jennifer, to call police as he scooped up Allison -- not realizing that she had been shot -- and her brothers, 7-year-old Aiden and 2-year-old Lucas. He put the children on the floor in his bedroom and told everyone to get under the bed.

"I went back to the front door and waited for them to come in," he said. When police arrived and Griffor turned on the lights, he and Jennifer saw Allison's injuries.

"I was not shot directly," Griffor said. "I received gunpowder burns and wood splinters in my arm, but our daughter received the bullet as she slept in her safe bed in her room."

Griffor thanked the public for the prayers and wishes and asked anyone with information to contact investigators. "We are good people and we have no enemies," he said. "We are good parents and Christians."

Douglas, the Griffors' friend, said the family plans to sell a truck and boat to help offset mounting medical bills. Douglas set up the William and Allison Griffor Fund for people to make donations to the family at any First Federal bank.

"Right now this is all in God's hands," Douglas said. "All they want is prayers and they want their daughter back."

People -- some neighbors, some strangers -- continued to stop by the family's home Thursday to drop off flowers, cards and toy animals on the front porch. Before leaving for the hospital, Douglas knelt and scooped up the cards and a stuffed unicorn to take to the family.

He paused and briefly ran his hand across the rough plywood nailed to the spot where the front door had once been.

Nearby home invasions

A few streets over, 24-year-old Brian Tait and his roommates were still trying to recover from their own brush with gun-wielding intruders on Saturday. Tait said they were initially too scared to report the incident to police.

His roommate, Justin LeBouf, finally called authorities after learning that a girl had been shot in a similar incident nearby, according to a police report.

Tait said he was sleeping when a group of masked men -- some carrying pistols, one with a shotgun -- burst into their apartment after his roommate answered a knock at the door.

Tait said he immediately knew what was happening because he had been targeted in a similar home invasion in November 2005 at another West Ashley apartment. He had struggled with the intruders during that incident and was shot in the shoulder, he said.

This time, Tait said, the robbers roughed up one of his roommates, but he emerged relatively unscathed. The robbers left as quickly as they arrived, making off with two laptops, an iPod and some cash, he said.

Tait said the gunmen threatened to kill them if they reported the crime, and fired off a round as they left to show they meant business. Tait and his roommates then barricaded the door and locked the windows, frightened that the robbers would come back. "I had a panic attack for three hours after it happened," he said.

Tait said he had no idea why someone would want to target him and his roommates.

One man later arrested in the crime, 17-year-old Devoun Bennett, told investigators he had set up LeBouf to be robbed by texting him with a request to buy $10 worth of marijuana, an incident report stated.

The report also noted that 7 grams of the weed had been taken during the robbery.

Police had also recovered marijuana -- some 12 bags in all -- from Tait's former apartment after the home invasion in which he was shot back in 2005, according to a police report.

Marijuana also was discovered at the Catterton Drive mobile home that was broken into 40 minutes after the shooting Tuesday at the Griffors' home. Someone kicked in the door, and deputies found 24 pounds of pot when they entered the home looking for suspects, authorities said.

The tenant, 28-year-old Juan Carlos Grant, is now in jail on drug charges, deputies said.

The 911 call

As investigators attempt to sort all this out and explore possible connections, some in the community have taken issue with the time it took for deputies to reach the Griffors' house that night and the manner in which their 911 call was handled by a county dispatcher.

Several people who listened to the call commented on postandcourier.com that the operator seemed rude, brusque and condescending in her handling of the call from Jennifer Griffor.

It took the 911 center three times longer than its average 51-second dispatch time to get units rolling to the scene. And it took almost 8 minutes from the time the call was received before the first unit arrived, county records show.

Jim Lake, director of the 911 center, said the call came in on a cell phone, so the computer couldn't immediately pinpoint the address. It took some time to verify the address, the caller's phone number and exactly what was happening, he said.

Units were dispatched about three minutes into the call, and the first arrived at the home a little less than five minutes later, he said.

Sheriff's Maj. Jim Brady said deputies arrived at the home as quickly as they could.

As for the call taker's manner, Lake said she was simply following established protocols and trying to get crucial information needed to ensure the safety of the Griffors and the responding emergency workers.

"I don't think she was abrupt," he said. "I think she was businesslike, which is what she needed to be in that situation."

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or on Twitter at @allysonjbird. Reach Glenn Smith at 937-5556 or on Twitter at @glennsmith5.