Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993 TAG: 9301230209
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`STREET WARRIOR' SENTENCED
A Roanoke man described by prosecutors as a "street warrior" was convicted Friday in a shooting that left his victim confined to a wheelchair for life.After convicting Eric Ricardo Taylor of aggravated malicious wounding, a jury set a 20-year prison term.
The bullet that left Phillip Todd Martin paralyzed from the chest down is still lodged in his neck, jurors were told during a two-day trial in Roanoke Circuit Court.
Martin, 34, testified he was shot the night of Jan. 5, 1992, in the parking lot of a nightclub on Melrose Avenue Northwest.
He said he was drinking a soft drink and eating potato chips when Taylor walked up and began an argument for no apparent reason.
"He approached me with a negative attitude and I responded with a negative attitude," Martin testified. "I didn't know what he was talking about."
The next thing he knew, Martin testified, he woke up in a hospital unable to move.
While Martin has regained some use of his arms since the shooting, doctors do not expect him to walk again, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Vaso Tahmin.
Taylor did not testify, relying instead on the testimony of alibi witnesses who said he was with them at the time of the shooting.
But Tahmin and Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony argued that the alibi did not apply to the time in question.
Anthony told the jury that the community cannot tolerate the actions of a "street warrior" like Taylor, even though there was no clear motive in the shooting.
"Todd Martin has already paid a terrible price for whatever this argument was about," she said. "Now it's time for the defendant to pay the price for taking the law into his own hands."