THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130020
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
How many thousands of murders do they say the average child sees on television before he grows up? And haven't those who read newspapers or watch TV news overdosed on the Simpson case, unending reports of kids killing kids, Portsmouth's homicide rate, etc.?
No wonder psychologists warn that America's constant barrage of violence in the media and in entertainment are numbing the nation's sensibilities to the violent taking of human life.
In general, they may be right. But we doubt that's the case in Wytheville, the small Southwest Virginia community shaken last week by an especially unsettling tragedy: A Wythe County deputy sheriff was killed, and a 15-year-old was charged with capital murder.
Deputy Cliff Dicker came to arrest Christopher Shawn Wheeler on a juvenile petition for auto theft. Young Wheeler asked if he might first change from his hunting clothes, and Dicker agreed. Instead, said Sheriff Wayne Pike, the boy got his .22-caliber rifle and shot Dicker, then took the deputy's own weapon and shot him again.
There was no argument or struggle, said Pike. ``He did the kid a favor and he killed him.''
Dicker, 57, was married and had three children. ``Cliff,'' said a colleague, ``was a guy you could count on if you were in a tight spot. He was an easy guy to get along with.''
Wheeler's family pieced together a troubled young life: his mother's suicide when he was 3; his father's fatal traffic accident several months ago; the death of a grandfather, with whom he was close; a favorite uncle slain by a girlfriend last year. ``He had a lot of hate in him,'' said an aunt.
The boy lived with his grandmother and the aunt, who said they had taken the .22 and other guns from Wheeler when he threatened to kill the uncle's girlfriend but recently had let him retrieve the .22, a gift from his late grandfather.
Neighbors said Wheeler was quiet, a little shy and exceptionally polite for a teenager. But Pike said he was undisciplined and out of control, with poor supervision at home, an incorrigible who had to be removed from high school and placed in a special program. The sheriff also said he had been in repeated run-ins with police and had been arrested a dozen times. Pike was outraged that, with this background, Wheeler was allowed to have a gun.
``The question is,'' said Pike, ``Should more have been done when he was arrested the other times?''
Equally haunting and perhaps more pertinent: Could more have been done through thoughtful intervention long before matters reached the point of arrest? by CNB