Savannah-Chatham's police officers have stayed quiet about Mark MacPhail's murder for 18 years, placing their faith in the legal system.  But for the sergeant who was first on the scene of the shooting, and who struggled to save his fellow officers' life, the time has finally come for him to talk.

"I can close my eyes and it's a photograph."

18 years - and Sergeant David Owens still remembers the details.
He was responding to a bus station shooting August 19th, 1989.
"The alert tone goes out again over the radio and this time they said 'It's an officer down.'
As I turned to come into the parking lot, my headlights came across a police officer face down in the parking lot."

That officer - Mark MacPhail.  While working an off duty security job, he stepped in to stop a fight, and got shot twice.  When Owens flipped the officer over, he says time slowed as he started CPR.  And at that moment, nothing else mattered.
"My world was Mark. I wanted him to live. What was making him not breathe? My wife was 8 months pregnant at the time.  Mark had just had a baby.  He was out in uniform working an extra job, earning money for his new family, his new baby. "

He says the violent way MacPhail died, while trying to stop violence, is unforgivable.
"(Troy Davis) chose to engage the officer because of what that officer represented. And he shoots him, and when he's down on the ground, and he's trying to push back up to live, and with what the crowd says a smirk on his face, stood over him, then executed this police officer."

Owens says he has no doubts Troy Davis committed the crime.  And believes a jury's recommended death sentence should stand. 
"There's been a lot of tears spilled, it's rough.  I hope people will remember this man stood for what's good in society, and he was murdered for it, and now the punishment needs to be fulfilled."