CHARGES DROPPED IN `COP KILLER' CASE

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 3, 1993                   TAG: 9303030026
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CHARGES DROPPED IN `COP KILLER' CASE
In what may finally end Washington County's "Cop Killer" saga, a judge on Tuesday granted a motion by prosecutors to drop charges against a record store owner accused of selling music harmful to juveniles.
Vic Vanover, owner of Vette Records in Abingdon, was in court a second time on charges of selling a "Body Count" tape by rapper Ice-T to a juvenile.
A grand jury had declined to indict him on a similar charge in October, but the case was resurrected by a Washington County resident who insists that Vanover sold the tape to his 15-year-old son.
Patrick Mannix obtained a second arrest warrant from a magistrate last month, just when it seemed that the case was over.
Two weeks earlier, a jury had ordered Mannix to pay $55,000 in damages after Vanover sued him for malicious prosecution. Vanover claimed in the lawsuit that Mannix brought the charges out of retaliation after his son had been charged with shoplifting a different tape from the store in August.
Had the charges against Vanover gone to trial, he would have been the first person in the country to face criminal charges related to the "Cop Killer" controversy.
"Cop Killer" is a song on the tape about a troubled youth in South Central Los Angeles who decides to go on a shooting spree to avenge police brutality. It includes obscenities directed at police and lyrics such as "I'm 'bout to dust some cops off."
Vanover has called the charges against him an attack on the First Amendment right of free expression.
At a hearing Tuesday in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney David Saliba asked that the charge be dropped, given the grand jury's earlier decision.
"There is a possibility another warrant could be issued," he said, "but as far at the commonwealth's attorney's office is concerned, it's over."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB