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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 10, 1995                   TAG: 9505100057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WYTHE, CHRISTIANSBURG OFFICERS AMONG SLAIN POLICE TO BE HONORED

Wythe County Deputy Sheriff Cliff Dicker and Christiansburg police Officer Terry Griffith will be among 298 law enforcement officers who will be remembered at memorial observances Saturday and Monday in Washington, D.C.

A memorial visitation center on E Street Northwest between Fourth and Fifth streets will open Saturday, and a candlelight vigil will be held there that night. A memorial service will be held at the center Monday morning at 9.

Wythe County Sheriff Wayne Pike and Christiansburg Police Chief Ron Lemons will attend, along with family members of the slain officers.

Dicker was killed Dec. 6 while serving papers on 15-year-old Christopher Shawn Wheeler. The boy has been charged with capital murder in his death. Griffith died Sept. 18 after a struggle over a gun with a West Virginia man accused of theft. The man was shot and killed by other officers.

Of the 298 names being added to the memorial, 157 officers were killed during 1994.

Pike said it was "one of the highest years since 1989, and almost a 7 percent increase over 1993."

Virginia, with six officers killed in 1994, had the seventh highest total in the nation.

Every year, Pike said, some 66,000 officers are assaulted and as many as 24,000 injured. He said 150 officers' lives were saved in 1994 by protective vests.

"They were shot and did not die because they were wearing a protective vest, and only half of those last year who were killed had on vests. So one of the best things an officer can do to protect himself or herself is wear a vest," Pike said.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB