THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507010497
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARA STANLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
A Newport News man was arrested Friday and charged in the fatal shooting late Thursday of an off-duty prison guard outside a Norfolk hotel, police said.
The suspect was identified as Kevin Antonia Howard, 20. He is accused of shooting Richard Harris, 29, in the parking lot of a Howard Johnson's hotel in the 700 block of Monticello Ave.
Harris, his wife and two friends had just left the Comedy Spotlight Theater, in the hotel, when they were approached by four men.
Harris and the men argued, police said, and Howard fired at Harris at about 11 p.m. The corrections officer was pronounced dead at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital a half-hour later. He was shot once in the upper abdomen, police said.
Police arrested Howard at about 3:30 a.m. on Logan Drive in Newport News. He was charged with murder and using a firearm in a felony.
Harris, a Chesapeake resident, was a corrections officer at St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake, police said. Police would not say whether he was armed at the time.
Harris had been a prison guard for almost three years, working at Powhatan Correctional Center for a year before moving to St. Brides in September 1993, said Jim Jones, executive assistant director of the Department of Corrections.
Harris was recently married to another St. Brides guard, Jones said.
Harris had applied to become a sergeant and had appeared before a Corrections Department panel hours before he was shot, according to another corrections officer, who asked not to be identified.
``It's a shame,'' the corrections officer said. ``He was well-liked at the department - a nice guy.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING by CNB