Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 25, 1993 TAG: 9306250217
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DISTRICT HEIGHTS, MD. LENGTH: Long
Portsmouth, Va., General District Judge Archie Elliott Jr. traded his black judicial robes for the dark pinstripe suit of a grieving father on Wednesday, burying his son and vowing to seek justice from the Maryland police officers who shot him.
"I'm looking at it through a father's eyes; I can't look at it any other way," Elliott said. "My son's life will not go in vain. The people of District Heights will hear something from this."
Archie Elliott III, 24, died last Friday in police custody after being stopped for driving drunk through this suburban Washington, D.C., community. Wearing only a pair of shorts and sneakers, Elliott had been handcuffed behind the back and seat-belted into the front seat of a patrol car with the door shut and windows rolled up when he began fumbling with a small gun, police said.
Two officers standing by the curb, one from District Heights and a backup called in from neighboring Prince Georges County, riddled Elliott with at least five bullets through the car window.
More than 1,000 mourners paid last respects to Elliott on Wednesday in the town where he lived with his mother, from whom Judge Elliott is divorced. Men and women alike sobbed at the sight of the grey-suited youth in his copper-colored casket. "It's so pitiful" one woman kept repeating.
In the crowd were Portsmouth City Manager V. Wayne Orton; Circuit Judge Johnny Morrison; Del. Kenneth Melvin, D-Portsmouth; Rep. Robert Scott, D-Newport News; and several uniformed Portsmouth sheriff's deputies.
Scott, in a statement earlier in the day, called for a federal investigation of the shooting. His office released a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in which Scott suggested the Justice Department should "determine if the shooting of Mr. Elliott violated his civil rights. The department should also investigate whether the shooting under such suspicious circumstances reflects any pattern or practice of police misconduct."
A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman said Thursday that the agency will investigate Elliott's death. The FBI investigation will be independent of inquiries by the county Police Department and state authorities.
Judge Elliott said he will take off from work "for probably the next 30 to 60 days," to conduct his own investigation. "I plan to go door-to-door" in the neighborhood where the shooting took place, he said.
Several witnesses already have told the judge that they saw no gun near his son, he said, "and I've never known him to have a gun."
Elliott also questions how the officers could have seen a weapon through the tinted glass of the police cruiser. And he thinks his son was more injured than reported, he said.
On Tuesday, the judge and several relatives went to view the body at the funeral home. Elliott said he could hardly look, but a nephew counted 18 to 21 bullet wounds and "bruises galore." That contradicts preliminary reports that five to 10 shots were fired, and conflicts with what at least one witness heard.
"It was more than five shots but not more than eight or so. I'm certain it wasn't" as many as 20, said Linda Grant, 42, who lives at the corner where Elliott was shot.
Her husband had just gotten home from work, Grant said, and the two were upstairs when they heard a series of popping sounds. Grant ran outside to find Elliott lying on the street by the patrol car, his torso covered in blood.
"I don't know if they pulled him out or if he fell when the door was opened," she said. "The police still had their guns pulled. . . . Nobody was giving him any assistance."
About eight minutes passed and several more officers arrived, Grant said, but no ambulance. Finally, she went inside and called the rescue squad.
"You don't treat an animal that way," but that's what happens to a black male at the hands of police, Judge Elliott said.
"We all know it," he said. "We try to hide it. We try to cover it up. But it's there and you can't hide it."
Morrisson, who said he regarded the younger Elliott like a son of his own, stayed close by his friend and fellow judge all day and shared his outrage that police were so quick to fire.
"You know, John Dillinger, he wasn't handcuffed and they waited on him. Jesse James, they waited on him. And this guy in Waco, Texas, they waited on him over two months and he had missiles in silos," Morrison said. "My question is: Why should it be any different in this case?"
Police said one of the officers involved in the shooting was white and the other was black. Both have been placed on leave, with pay, while the incident is investigated. Police Chief Michael W. Convoy said this is the first police shooting in memory in District Heights, a middle-class community of about 7,000. "Our sympathies go out to the family," he said. "But they also go out to the police officers. Most people forget that side of it."
The mourners dressed in dark finery against Wednesday's blue-skied heat had a hard time seeing the police side of it.
"I see officers sitting in here, with guns on their hips and they cannot use them. Because what? They have been bereaved on the inside," said the Rev. Matthew McCoy of First Baptist Church in Fairmont Heights during the eulogy.
"It is now time we stood up. If you want to make anything out of the situation that has gone on, I tell you: First call. Write. Voice your support. . . . Remember that vengeance is the Lord's."
by CNB