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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991                   TAG: 9103260125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: DETROIT                                LENGTH: Medium

1 ARRESTED IN GULF WAR VET'S SLAYING

Against a backdrop of mounting questions, police said Monday that they had arrested a suspect in the slaying of a 22-year-old soldier who was shot to death last Monday, just a day after returning to Detroit from service in the Persian Gulf.

The killing of Spec. Anthony Riggs drew national attention as a case filled with brutal irony: A young man survives a war, only to be killed through random inner-city violence as soon as he comes home.

But it appeared Monday that characterization might not stand up. The police declined to identify the arrested suspect, saying charges had not been filed, but broadcast accounts identified him as a brother of Riggs' wife, Toni, 22.

Police would neither confirm nor deny those accounts. But Judge Dalton Roberson of Detroit Recorder's Court confirmed that Toni Riggs herself had been arrested earlier in the day and then released after a few hours.

Roberson said Toni Riggs' release followed his signing of a writ, sought by her attorney, demanding that the police either file charges against her or free her.

Newsweek magazine reported this week that when Toni Riggs met her husband on his return from the gulf, she asked him for a divorce. The magazine said marital problems arose between the couple while Riggs was in the Middle East.

The motive for the killing appears uncertain. Last week the police said Riggs apparently had been shot during the theft of his car.

His body was found on the front lawn of the house belonging to his wife's grandmother, where the couple had been visiting, and his car later was recovered not far away.

The slaying brought calls from some politicians for an intensive war against street crime, and some pointed to the case as evidence that inner cities were frequently more dangerous than the war zone in the Persian Gulf had been.

Joan Cato, the grandmother of Riggs' wife, told local newspapers that Riggs had joked about the sound of gunfire in the neighborhood only a few hours before his death.

Riggs, a member of a Patriot missile unit stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, was buried Saturday in Detroit. Aretha Franklin sang at his funeral, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered a eulogy.

Before the services, Jackson, referring to the street violence that frequently claims young blacks, told reporters:

"The life options of the black male are reduced. He had the choice of dying in Kuwait or dying in Detroit. He should have been able to live in both."

by CNB