ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 12, 1997 TAG: 9704140057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK THE ROANOKE TIMES
He was convicted of assaulting three Roanoke police officers and a state trooper last year.
Minutes after he was sentenced to four months in the Roanoke City Jail for assaulting four police officers, Steven L. Leftwich said Friday that he will file a lawsuit accusing them of police brutality.
Leftwich and his lawyer, Harold Barnes of Norfolk, confirmed they plan to file a lawsuit claiming that police violated his civil rights when a traffic stop turned into an early-morning brawl on the City Market more than a year ago.
That's what Leftwich told a jury in January. But after a three-day trial, the jury convicted him of assaulting three Roanoke police officers and a state trooper. Leftwich was sentenced to 30 days for each assault.
Barnes had asked that the four 30-day sentences run concurrently instead of consecutively. But Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein chose not to modify the jury's recommendation.
"I was done wrong, and I feel I shouldn't go to jail for it," Leftwich told Weckstein. "But if the court feels that I should go to jail for something I didn't do, there's nothing more that I can say."
According to earlier testimony, Roanoke police stopped a car with a burned-out taillight on Campbell Avenue about 4 a.m. Feb. 11, 1996. Leftwich was asked to step out of the passenger's seat after an officer spotted what appeared to be marijuana in the car.
Leftwich, 31, and his cousin, who was driving the car, both testified that police jumped Leftwich for no reason. As more police flocked to the scene, they said, Leftwich was kicked, choked and hit in the head with a flashlight.
But police said Leftwich shoved a state trooper who stopped to assist, then continued to struggle as city officers tried to subdue him. Leftwich and the officers suffered cuts, bruises and other minor injuries.
Weckstein gave Leftwich a free weekend, ordering him to report to jail at 9 a.m. Monday. Under jail rules that give well-behaved inmates one day off for each day served, Leftwich will have to pull at least two months.
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