SHERIFF WANTS STATE TO GET RID OF STOCK IN ALBUM'S MAKER

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

DATE: TUESDAY, February 2, 1993                   TAG: 9302020225
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
SHERIFF WANTS STATE TO GET RID OF STOCK IN ALBUM'S MAKER
Montgomery County Sheriff Ken Phipps said Monday he supports a bill sponsored in the General Assembly by Del. Robert Marshall, R-Manassas, that would force the Virginia Retirement System to sell its stock in Time Warner Inc.
Time Warner produced the "Body Count" album by rap singer Ice-T that contains the controversial song "Cop Killer."
Virginia has many police officers who are covered by the VRS and Phipps doesn't think any of them would be happy to know the retirement system has investments in Time Warner.
The sheriff said he would urge the county's delegation in the General Assembly to support Marshall's bill.
Marshall's legislation would require the VRS to sell its Time Warner stock by 1994.
The delegate said Monday that he is pursuing the bill even though Time Warner and Ice-T parted ways last week. The company's Warner Bros. record unit released the rapper unconditionally from his contract, citing "creative differences."
That Time Warner defended a record "touting anarchy, sedition and the murder of police officers" in the first place indicates the company's executives' poor judgment, Marshall said. "I don't believe the commonwealth of Virginia, through the Virginia Retirement System, should invest in companies that exhibit and publicly defend such poor judgment."
In June, Gerald Levin, Time Warner's chief executive, said in the Wall Street Journal that his company stands for creative freedom and that "Cop Killer" wasn't written to advocate an assault on police.
"It doesn't incite or glorify violence. . . . We won't retreat in the face of threats of boycotts or political grandstanding," Levin said.
Marshall said, "While Time Warner may be legally free to produce such trash, Virginia's taxpayers should not be obliged to support it through appropriations made by the General Assembly."
Marshall said he urged Gov. Douglas Wilder in August to direct the VRS to sell its Time Warner stock. He said he never heard from Wilder but was told the VRS would keep the stock, which then totaled 18,000 shares valued at $1.9 million.
The stock has since split 4-to-1 and is worth $2.1 million, Marshall said. The state could sell it today and make a $200,000 profit, he said.
That assessment could not be confirmed. The VRS did not respond to an inquiry Monday about its position on Time Warner.
Lisa Katz, a spokesman for Wilder, said Monday that the governor's office has no record of having been contacted by Marshall. Wilder, however, received correspondence about the song from other members of the General Assembly and the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, she said.
In a letter to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Prince William County, Secretary of Administration Ruby Martin - who oversees the VRS - said the agency had consulted with the Attorney General's office and had determined its investment decisions must be based on financial rather than moral or social considerations, Katz said.
Marshall responded that Wilder did not take that position when he suggested the state should not invest in corporations operating in South Africa. But Katz said comparing the debate over the song lyrics to the oppression in South Africa would be "like comparing apples and oranges."
And what about Marshall's bill? Katz said Wilder makes it a practice not to comment on legislation until it comes before him for his signature at the end of the legislative process.
Ice-T, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, will be at Radford University on Feb. 11 to talk about freedom of speech.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB