Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990 TAG: 9007180554
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
One of the teens, 18-year-old Lonnie Davis, ran up to Thompson and yelled: "Here he is; he's right here," Thompson testified Tuesday.
Fearing for his life, Thompson said, he pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot Davis in the chest.
After spending a month in jail awaiting trial on a murder charge, Thompson was freed Tuesday after a Roanoke judge ruled that he had acted in self-defense.
"Given what he was confronted with, it appears that his actions were reasonable in fearing for his life," Judge Richard Pattisall said in dismissing the charges during a preliminary hearing in Roanoke General District Court.
However, Pattisall said it was a "sad commentary on our society" that Davis had to die over something as petty as a dispute about blocked traffic at a crowded graduation party.
Witnesses testified that Thompson, a fast-food restaurant employee, got into an argument with a group of young men at a block party on Kershaw Road Northwest. The June 14 party was for graduates of William Fleming High School.
As departing partyers spilled into the street and blocked traffic, a man whom Thompson knew only by the nickname "Tubby" blew his horn and told him to get out of the street.
Tempers flared, prompting at least one person to ask Thompson to leave the party. But a group of about seven young men followed Thompson more than a mile to his apartment on Marr Street near Valley View Mall.
On the way, one of the youths pulled up next to the car Thompson was riding in and said "he was going to blow my head off," Thompson testified.
After making it home, Thompson was watching television at his apartment when the group drove up and began to circle the apartment building.
"I had heard these people were dangerous and that they carried guns, but when I was in my apartment I thought I was safe," he said.
Thompson said he decided to go to a friend's house to avoid any further trouble, but was confronted by the group on the front steps of the apartment building.
"Don't move," someone commanded Thompson. The 18-year-old said he then heard someone asking where he was, saying: "I can't see him to shoot him."
It was at that point, Thompson said, that Davis ran up to him and pointed him out to the gunman. Thompson said he pulled a gun - given to him earlier that night by a "concerned friend" - from his pocket and fired twice.
Davis, who was struck in the chest, was pronounced dead at the scene.
"I was scared and I was trying to protect myself," Thompson said under cross-examination from Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mac Doubles, who asked why it was necessary to shoot an unarmed man twice.
But Assistant Public Defender Marian Kelley argued that Thompson had reason to believe Davis' actions were threatening.
"Whether or not Davis was armed is not the point, it's what was going through Thompson's mind that is important," she said.
The incident was not the first time that Davis had been involved in a shooting. The 18-year-old was one of three people wounded the night former high school football star Ronny Grogan was shot and killed at the Lincoln Terrace housing project.
When police arrived at the scene of Davis' death, they found evidence that the youths may have planned an armed standoff. Four revolvers were discovered hidden under a nearby air-conditioning duct.
A teen-ager later confirmed that the guns had been carried by at least four youths who had "come looking" for Thompson.
by CNB