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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994                   TAG: 9404120150
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DEPUTY DIDN'T USE EXCESS FORCE

A Botetourt County sheriff's deputy did not use excessive force when he fatally shot a fleeing and unarmed robbery suspect in 1991, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, in a written opinion, ruled that Deputy O.E. Shires followed proper procedure when he apprehended Terry Ricardo Smith Oct.24, 1991.

Smith, a 29-year-old Staunton resident, was killed as he ran from Shires. The deputy had stopped Smith's car on a rural road because the car matched the description of one involved in the armed robbery of a Buchanan convenience store.

Smith's estate filed a $5 million civil lawsuit after a Botetourt County grand jury twice declined to indict Shires on manslaughter charges.

At last month's motions hearing, Shires' attorney, Fain Rutherford, told Kiser that Smith would not have been shot if he had obeyed the deputy's order to put his hands in the air.

''It was Smith's threatening and evasive action that led to the shooting,'' Rutherford said.

Instead, Smith grabbed an object - which Shires thought was a gun - and fled on foot.

Shires told investigators that he fired after Smith turned toward him with the object in his hand.

It was later discovered that Smith was clutching his sunglasses and keys, not a weapon, when he was killed.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice is pending.

by CNB