Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991 TAG: 9103150407
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER AND RON BROWN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Curtis Ronnie Hilton, 18, of the 1100 block of Rugby Boulevard Northwest in Roanoke, and Maurice Dooley, 19, of North Drive in Christiansburg, both were wounded by gunfire when two assailants approached them as they sat in a parked car, police said.
A source familiar with the investigation said one of the men was shot in the head, and the other was hit in the back and hand.
One of the men was lying in the street and the other on the sidewalk when police arrived shortly after 6 p.m.
Police investigators found at least five shell casings in the vicinity of Gandy Drive Northwest, where the two men were lying next to a small foreign car.
Witnesses at the scene told police the shots probably came from a semiautomatic or automatic pistol because they were fired at rapid intervals.
It was unclear whether the two men were shot in the car, which had several bullet holes in it.
Dooley was undergoing surgery Thursday night at Roanoke Memorial Hospital and was listed in critical condition.
Hilton was undergoing surgery at Community Hospital.
The source said police believed initially that each man was shot twice. Police declined to comment on a possible motive.
A black hat lay in the middle of the road next to a pool of blood. Broken glass from the car windows glistened under the street lights.
Carolyn Hardy, 25, saw the yellow evidence tape marking the shooting area. Hardy had been visiting her grandmother, who lives on Gandy Drive, and usually parks her car where the foreign car was sitting.
"If my car had been parked there I could've been hit," she said. "It don't make no sense.. . . You look at it and you wonder why."
Hardy, of Southwest Roanoke, said police should patrol the area on foot because police cars driving through the area don't make any difference.
"Then you wouldn't have people standing around. There'd be someone to tell them to move on," she said. Hardy's fear is for her almost 70-year-old grandmother. "Once it gets dark, it gets crazy," Hardy said. "I wish I was rich; I'd take her out of these projects."
by CNB