THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060645
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND KAREN E. QUINONES MILLER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
As police prepared to seek a peaceful end to a two-hour standoff, a gunman who had holed up inside Wythe Elementary School took his own life Wednesday.
Police found his body early today after using cameras and sound equipment to check the classroom to which he had fled after crashing his car during a high-speed police chase between two cities. The school was evacuated at 2:45 p.m. when the man ran inside carrying a handgun. No one else was hurt.
The man, identified as Franklin Stevenson, 40, had threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend. She had broken up with him weeks earlier.
Police spokesman Donnie Moore said members of the SWAT team entered the classroom just before 1 a.m. today and found Stevenson dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Events leading up to the man's death began about 2:30 p.m. with a frantic call to police from a 28-year-old woman who said her ex-boyfriend had come to the Hampton Handi-Mart where she worked and was threatening to kill her.
Police heard a chilling confirmation of the threat. ``Our dispatch officer heard a man in the background saying, `I'll kill you,' '' said Bill Roth, a police spokesman.
Police were sent to the convenience store in the 1700 block of Madison Ave. When the first officers arrived, they saw a man getting into a white Mitsubishi Mirage. Someone nearby yelled, ``That's him!''
The car sped off followed by two police cars.
They first went south to 16th Street, then east across the city line into Hampton where 16th Street becomes Chesapeake Avenue. Hampton police joined them. The Mitsubishi turned north on LaSalle Avenue and then west on Kecoughtan Road, heading back toward Newport News.
Nita Mitchell, who owns a restaurant on Kecoughtan near the school, said she heard sirens and looked out a window in time to see about 10 police cars chasing a white car.
``The man was driving so fast,'' she said. ``I knew there was a wicked curve coming up, and I said, `Oh, my God. He's not going to make it. . . . He was only on two wheels as he was making the turn.''
A second later she heard the crash. The chase had ended where Kecoughtan Road curves around Wythe Elementary at Catalpa Avenue.
Karen Norman, who works at a doctors' office nearby, said she saw the car hit a garage. Initially, she ran toward the wreck, but she quickly retreated when she saw a man with a gun get out of the car. ``He wasn't pointing it at anybody or anything,'' Norman said. ``But he had it, so I ran.''
With officers closing in, the man ran to the school, where he tried at least two doors before finding one that was unlocked, police said.
``A teacher looking out of her classroom window saw a man with a gun enter the school and immediately notified the secretary in the main office,'' said Hampton schools Superintendent Billy Cannaday.
Although all students in kindergarten through third grade had left just minutes earlier, grades four and five were in session. An undetermined number of students, teachers and employees were in the building.
Mae Kirk, a maintenance worker, had just finished cleaning a first-floor classroom and had walked into the hallway. ``I saw a policeman standing there with a gun and he yelled, `Get out of here!' And I flew out of there.''
In the office, the secretary followed an established emergency plan, Cannaday said. The school was cleared within minutes.
Police quickly sealed off the area. As parents arrived to pick up children, officers fanned out. Some were dressed in Army-style fatigues and carried rifles.
Members of the SWAT team moved into the school about 5 p.m. Moments later, just as they neared the room where they believed the gunman was hiding, two shots were heard.
Not knowing if he had shot at them or not, officers set up positions around the room to preclude the gunman's escape and then tried to establish communication.
Three negotiators were brought in the and girlfriend as well as several other friends and acquaintances of Stevenson's stood by ready to assist in talks.
Initially, Moore said negotiators used the school's intercom system from the office. With that, police could speak into the room and hear a response. There was none.
As darkness fell, police resorted to more advanced technology, including video equipment. A camera was first put up outside the building, its lens peering in through the second-floor classroom's windows. The camera was then taken into the school and pushed through the classroom door.
When police reviewed the videotape, they spotted Stevenson's body.
By then, it was well after midnight.
``He was lying on his right side,'' Moore said. ``The gun was still in his hand.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON
Hampton police officers and a dog combed Wythe Elementary School in
Hampton Wednesday before the gunman was found dead in a classroom
early this morning.
KEYWORDS: SUICIDE by CNB