Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 21, 1990                   TAG: 9003212179
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE and LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE TEEN SHOT IN CHEST

Frank Lee Weeks, of the 2200 block of Russell Avenue Southwest, was shot with a gun that had been taken from his mother's bedroom, police said.

The suspect - whom police declined to identify except to say it was a family member - told authorities that the shooting was accidental.

However, police are continuing an investigation and declined to say late Tuesday afternoon whether the suspect's explanation had been confirmed. No charges had been filed Tuesday.

Detectives with the Police Department's Youth Bureau have not been able to talk to Weeks, who was in surgery at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Police said Tuesday afternoon that Weeks was in critical condition. Hospital officials later declined to release any information on his condition, citing a request by family members.

The shooting happened about 12:30 p.m., shortly after Weeks' mother had brought him home from a half-day program at the city's alternative education program, where he is a seventh-grader.

The mother then went to a nearby laundry, leaving Weeks and another family member in the home, police said.

The suspect told police he went into the mother's bedroom and removed a small-caliber pistol from the top drawer of her dresser, authorities said.

After taking the gun back to the room where Weeks was, the suspect told police that the weapon accidentally discharged - striking the 15-year-old in the right side of his chest.

When police arrived at the home a short time later, they found that the gun had been placed back in the dresser drawer.

Weeks was lying in the front yard of his family's small frame house.

His older brother, Dougie, tried to revive his brother with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. "He was trying so hard," said Teresa Perdue, a family friend who arrived at the home minutes after the shooting.

Paramedics arrived minutes later and took Weeks to the hospital, leaving his green baseball cap lying on the lawn.

John Crawford, a counselor/therapist for the alternative education program, said Weeks was assigned to the program last fall because of attendance problems during the previous school year.

"He's been taking care of business here," Crawford said. "He's been coming virtually every day."

Perdue, standing in the front yard, had goose bumps on her bare arms. "I've got four children, and that's why I never had a gun in my house," she said. "I just couldn't handle this."