THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 20, 1995 TAG: 9505200376
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
No charges were filed Friday against a Chanello's Pizza delivery driver who police said shot and killed a robber Thursday night.
Police said Cordell Lamont Marshall, 25, died in Sentara Norfolk General Hospital shortly after being shot by the driver, whose name was not released.
Two Chanello's drivers were sent to the 700 block of East 27th St. to make a a delivery at 10:53 p.m., police said. When they arrived, they were approached and held up by three males.
During the robbery, Marshall was shot, police said. It was not clear where the driver had carried the gun or whether the drivers were out of the car when they were held up.
The other two robbery suspects fled after the shooting, and police were looking for them Friday.
Chet Blair, vice president of Chanello's, said his company would review the results of the police investigation before deciding whether to take any action against the driver.
Chanello's, which has 24 locations in Hampton Roads, has a strict no-weapons policy for its drivers, Blair said. Thursday's shooting was the first known policy violation, he said.
``We're shocked completely,'' Blair said. ``The company policy is no weapons whatsoever. When we heard, we just were amazed that it happened.''
Two drivers were dispatched to make Thursday's delivery, Blair said, because Chanello's drivers had been robbed in Park Place four times in the past six months. Extra drivers are normally used in high-crime areas to try to deter would-be robbers, he said.
Officials say pizza delivery drivers - as well as other food deliverers and cab drivers - often are easy targets because they usually are alone and carrying cash.
In 1994, a number of a high-profile delivery robberies occurred in Hampton Roads:
Dale Winkler, 42, a Chanello's driver, was shot through the heart during a robbery. He recovered from his injuries after a long hospital stay.
Jonton V. Hunt, 18, of Norfolk, was charged with shooting Ronald Schwartztrauber, a pizza-delivery driver, in the face in the South Norfolk section of Chesapeake last August. The driver survived.
In February 1994 in Suffolk, a 22-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy ordered pizza twice and were charged with robbing the delivery drivers at gunpoint.
In January 1994 on the Eastern Shore, a 23-year-old woman was shot and killed on a deserted road during a pizza delivery.
In January 1994 in Newport News, police officer Steven R. Rutherford was killed while posing as a pizza-delivery driver during an undercover operation designed to end a string of robberies.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING PIZZA DELIVERY by CNB