Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1991 TAG: 9104170045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now, people ride by at all hours and gawk. Some yell threats toward the brick house on the corner. Others throw things.
"Rocks . . . a couple of mud balls . . . beer bottles . . . basic trash," Vivian Morris said.
Morris' husband, Leonard, was shot and killed last month by Roanoke police after he stabbed one officer and charged two others. The Roanoke NAACP has called for an FBI investigation into what it calls the "grave possibility" that Morris was the victim of excessive force and racism by white police officers.
Although an investigation by Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell concluded last week that police were justified in using deadly force to protect themselves, Vivian Morris isn't ready to put the incident behind her.
For one reason, the people who cruise past her house offer constant reminders that her husband's death has become a racial issue. Many people seem upset that the NAACP and the Morris family even are raising questions about the shooting, she said.
"This neighborhood has never been so busy," Morris said as she stood on her front porch in the 400 block of Arbutus Avenue, cradling a small child in her arms.
"There goes one now," she said as a passing car slowed almost to a standstill. "It's just basically people coming by, wanting to stare and to point. It really doesn't get to me; I just wave at them."
But some people have done more than stare. There have been threatening telephone calls late at night, with people telling Morris to leave the predominantly white neighborhood or face the consequences.
One caller told Morris: "You niggers better get out of here," she said.
Morris isn't moving. "All my neighbors here tell me not to put the house up for sale," she said. "They don't want people to feel that we've been run out of the neighborhood."
A neighbor said she was shocked to hear that Leonard Morris was identified as the person who stabbed a woman as many as 30 times, left her on a nearby street corner and then attacked police when they came to his home to investigate.
"He was a real nice young man," said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "There was never anything over there other than their family, their kids and their work."
But at the same time, she said, "What happened to that girl was just horrendous."
Morris says she still cannot believe her husband did the things authorities say he did. But even if he did, she said, that doesn't excuse the fact that police shot him as many as nine times, and that some of the shots were to his back as he fell to the floor.
"There are still some questions that haven't been answered," she said.
Members of the Morris family, along with NAACP leaders Evangeline Jeffrey and Carl Tinsley, met Monday afternoon with Caldwell to go over the results of his investigation that cleared the officers.
Caldwell spent an hour and a half giving essentially the same explanation he presented to reporters last week. "I didn't try to win any friends or influence any enemies," he said.
Jeffrey, president of the city branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had no immediate comment after the meeting. "We're just waiting for more information," she said Tuesday.
The FBI still is conducting its investigation, and Police Chief M. David Hooper said an internal review of departmental procedures should be completed by the end of the week.
Morris, who was 27, worked as a floor supervisor at the Waccamaw store at Crossroads Mall. A native of Jamaica, he came to Roanoke two years ago from Charleston, S.C., after Hurricane Hugo demolished the Waccamaw store there.
Because of his outstanding work record, officials transferred Morris to the Roanoke store in order to keep him with the company, according to Jan Hart of Waccamaw's corporate headquarters.
"Leonard was a very good employee and was well thought of and valued," Hart said.
In addition to being a good supervisor at work, Morris also was a caring husband and a devoted father to three small children and two older foster children, his wife said.
"The kids were the center of his life, even above me," Vivian Morris said.
Morris said she's convinced her husband was not the cocaine-crazed "madman" that authorities said stabbed one police officer and rushed two others at knife point.
"But he's dead now; he will never have the chance to tell his side of the story," she said.
"I'm not going to be silenced by anybody. . . . I'm not going to rest until I know the answers."
by CNB