Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 5, 1995 TAG: 9508080022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
"The young man was belligerent," Patrolman Leonard R. Howell told Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Frank Slavin. "I was just trying to get the young man's attention."
Jody Bullion, a passenger in a car driven by a man arrested for having no operator's license, testified that he became upset when Howell said he would have to be taken to a juvenile detention center in Christiansburg if a parent or guardian did not come to the Carroll County jail to pick him up.
"I told him he wasn't taking me nowhere," Bullion said. "As soon as I got through saying what I said, here he come."
He said he had been talking to Howell through a jail window, and that Howell rushed inside, took him by the throat, bounced him against a breaker box on a wall, a filing cabinet and a desk.
"He was swinging me around like a rag doll," the boy said.
Bullion admitted using "a few curse words" when he told Howell he was not going to be taken anywhere. "If someone was gonna take you away from your mom and your family just for being out in a car, you'd smart off too, sir," he told the judge.
"If there was ever language that would get someone in trouble with the police, this would do it," Slavin said in announcing his decision: "I cannot say that the force here was unreasonable. I can't say that it was excessive."
He said it would have been unreasonable for police not to take some action to bring a belligerent youth under control. He acquitted Howell of the misdemeanor charge of assault and battery.
"The only thing I wanted him to do was to get his mother to come and get him," Howell testified. The boy 's mother did pick him up later.
Howell said he put one hand on the boy's shoulder, not his throat, and the other on his wrist and "walked him" against the wall. There were no marks on the boy, and he did not complain of any injury.
Jerry Griffin, 26, the driver of the car, and Steve Manuel, another passenger, both said Howell tossed Bullion around the room. Carl Harmon, a part-time Hillsville patrolman, said Howell had seized Bullion by the neck.
Harmon said he had touched Bullion earlier in an attempt to calm him. "I put my hand on his shoulder, told him to settle down, everything was going to be OK," he said.
When Bullion made his remarks through the jail window, Harmon said, "Mr. Howell came in behind me, grabbed Mr. Bullion, threw him up against the wall and said something to the effect of 'Don't sass me.'"
"He didn't appear to be out of control, but sort of annoyed, perhaps," Carroll County Deputy Tommy Bobbitt said of Howell. "It was rough but it was still guiding. It was not an attack."
Slavin asked Deputy Doug Lamb, who was in charge of the jail, whether he had felt he should have done something about the situation. "It looked like Officer Howell had the situation under control," Lamb said.
Hillsville Police Chief Kenny H. Sharpe Jr. described Howell, who has worked in the law enforcement field since 1983, as an excellent officer. He said Frieda Bullion, the boy's mother, told him she wanted Howell to be fired because of the incident.
Carroll County Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Goad disqualified himself from prosecuting the case because he is also the Hillsville town attorney. The boy and his mother had no attorney, but the judge filled that role in a way through his questioning of all witnesses.
Howell had voluntarily taken compensatory and vacation time from his job until the court hearing.
by CNB