Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409290064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
More than $7,000 has been donated to bank accounts established in memory of Terry L. Griffith, the Christiansburg police officer slain Sept. 18 while answering a shoplifting complaint.
Griffith, a 17-year veteran of the Christiansburg Police Department, died after a West Virginia man shot him with Griffith's own service revolver during a struggle. Samuel Jerome Patterson, the man who shot Griffith, was shot and killed minutes later by Montgomery County deputies.
Paperwork and final autopsy results are all that remain to be finished before a final report on the shooting is issued, Montgomery County Sheriff Ken Phipps said.
But tributes to Griffith's life and in his memory continue throughout the community.
Christiansburg Police Chief Ron Lemons said Griffith's unit number, 41, will not be assigned to any future officer.
"We have officially retired unit 41," Lemons said. "In years to come, there will always be that blank spot" on shift schedules and police rosters.
Lemons said that when new officers join the force in later years, they may not have known Griffith or heard about how he died. The absence of that unit number will provide other officers the opportunity to tell them "who he was, what he was and what he meant to us."
Christiansburg officers also are continuing to wear black bands over their badges - a traditional sign of mourning for a slain officer.
"We will wear these bands for 17 days - one day for each year that he honorably served us," Lemons said.
Griffith, 37, was married and had five children.
Three accounts have been set up at the First National Bank of Christiansburg. The accounts are The Terry L. Griffith Memorial Youth Center Fund, for a project at his church; the Terry L. Griffith Family Fund; and a scholarship fund to pay bills related to his children's education.
Donations may be mailed to any of the funds in care of the bank, P.O. Box 600, Christiansburg 24073.
Throughout Christiansburg, flags continue to fly at half-staff and stores have photocopied signs taped to windows urging customers to remember Griffith.
Diane Griffith, the officer's widow, calls the community gestures of support incredible.
``It's been unreal. People that I've never met ... are sending me cards,'' she said. ``I can't handle all of it yet, but just knowing they're out there ...''
She had especially kind words for the wives of police officers who were by her side the night Griffith was shot.
"I knew that they could feel my pain - nothing they can do or say, but they were there. It was real. ... It was helpful that the wives came and not just the husbands," she said.
Griffith said she was deeply touched by the hundreds of police officers and community members who attended Griffith's funeral Sept. 21.
"What a tribute to him ... just incredible. He would have been so proud."
Diane Griffith remembers her husband as a man who helped around the house and reached out to help others. People attending the funeral included those once on the wrong side of the law whom Terry Griffith, a deeply religious man, had helped to get their lives in order.
"He was everything that a woman has ever dreamed that she wanted a man to be in every area," she said. He was involved with the children and helped do dishes, laundry and other household chores.
"He wore pink shirts," she said, as a lesson to their boys, who thought the color was strictly for girls.
``He would say, `It takes a real man to wear pink,''' Diane Griffith recalled.
They got the message. When deciding what to wear to the funeral, one of the sons selected a shirt with pink in it.
``Mom, look at my shirt,'' Diane Griffith recalled her son Adam saying.
by CNB