ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
LARRY D. SMITH got six years in prison for a chase in which only he was injured.
A high-speed police chase that left a Vinton family dead was cited Tuesday by a Roanoke prosecutor who used it in obtaining a maximum sentence for a man charged in an unrelated chase.
Larry D. Smith, 26, was sentenced to six years in prison for reckless driving and driving after being declared a habitual offender.
On the night of last Aug. 15, Smith sped off after police tried to stop him at Fourth Street and Woods Avenue in Old Southwest. The van he was driving matched one in a stalking complaint that police were investigating, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Gardner.
Smith led police on a chase down Franklin Road at speeds of 86 mph, then headed north on the Roy L. Webber Highway at speeds approaching 100 mph. After taking Interstate 81 north, Smith lost control of his van as he tried to drive around a tractor-trailer near the Hollins exit.
The only person injured in the accident was Smith himself; he was thrown 106 feet from the van as it struck a guardrail. Smith, who landed on the interstate, suffered severe leg injuries that required surgery and confined him temporarily to a wheelchair.
Smith later admitted he had been drinking moonshine all day and said he had no memory of the chase.
"It's just incredible that no one else was injured," Gardner said in asking Roanoke Circuit Judge Richard Pattisall to impose the maximum sentence. "There's no telling how many people were out there whose lives were in danger."
Although Gardner cited the deaths of the Vinton couple and their infant - who were killed Sunday in Roanoke County when their car was hit by a man who had led police on a 15-mile, high-speed chase - she said she was not asking that Smith be punished for what might have happened, but didn't, in his case.
But the mere mention of the Roanoke County chase had that effect, Assistant Public Defender Steve Milani argued.
"I think it was used for inflammatory purposes, and I think it had inflammatory effects," Milani said. "I think, fortuitously, my client got a harsher sentence, maybe because of the climate of last weekend's events."
Some witnesses to Sunday's fatal wreck have questioned why Roanoke County police chased a suspect so far and so fast on what turned out to be minor charges.
But in the case of his own client, Milani said that listening to the tape of the radio traffic between a dispatcher and police pursuing Smith convinced him the officers acted responsibly.
"It seemed to me that they were being professional and restrained, and they weren't cowboying it at all," he said of the Roanoke officers who pursued Smith.
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