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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 17, 1995                   TAG: 9501170137
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

FEDERAL PROBE SOUGHT AFTER FIGHT AT GAME

The lawyer for a 15-year-old Gloucester High School student hurt during a fight with three deputies at a basketball game this month said Monday he would seek a federal inquiry of the incident.

Stephen Merrill, a Norfolk attorney who is representing Adair Rhodes, wrote a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Seidel asking him to ``investigate this incident for violations of civil rights laws.''

According to witness accounts, the teen-ager suffered a gash on his head when he hit a pillar while wrestling with two deputies as a third sprayed him with pepper gas. Rhodes is black; the deputies are white.

Sheriff Robin Stanaway said a review of the incident showed his deputies used the minimum force necessary to stop an escalating situation. Stanaway said one of the deputies asked the youth to move, but he refused. ``He wanted a confrontation, and he got one,'' Stanaway said.

by CNB