In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Shooting of gunowner questioned, called excessive
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Harnett shooting questioned
By Matt Leclercq
Staff writer
LILLINGTON -- Gregory Alfred Smith was shot to death on June 12 when sheriff's deputies broke into his house to serve a warrant charging him with the theft of a gun nine months earlier. But Smith had paid for the gun, except for $19.50. Smith
He failed, however, to fill out a federal form required for the purchase, and the dealer says that means the transaction was incomplete.
Sheriff's deputies say they tried for months to get Smith to turn himself in and straighten out the problem. No one knows why he didn't.
Four deputies with shotguns went to Smith's house in western Harnett County to serve the warrant. When two of them broke into the front door, Smith started shooting, according to the Sheriff's Office. Detective Richard Foley was hit in the shoulder, and he returned fire. Smith was killed with one shot in the stomach.
Inside the house, Smith's relatives later found the paperwork for the gun -- completed, signed and dated a week earlier.
The relatives say they believe the deputies used excessive force. They question whether Smith knew what was going on when the deputies broke in.
"They should have used tear gas or got relatives to take him out," said Smith's uncle, James Mimms of Sanford. "If I saw two people at the front door and two people at the back door with shotguns, I'd be reluctant to open the door, too."
Sheriff's Maj. Steve West said an internal investigation completed this week found that the deputies followed proper procedures for serving a warrant and using deadly force. The State Bureau of Investigation, which examines cases of lawmen involved in shootings, is still looking into the matter. The SBI will forward its findings to the district attorney.
"People have warrants every day, and we go out and arrest thousands of people," West said. "We don't have gunbattles -- they don't try to shoot deputies."
Perplexing case
The circumstances that turned Smith -- a 37-year-old who lived alone and kept to himself -- into a wanted man are baffling to those who knew him.
Staff photo by Tracy Wilcox
Aubrey Wood, owner of The Gun Shop in Lillington, holds the gun permit of Gregory Smith. Harnett County deputies shot and killed Smith when they attempted to serve a warrant at his residence.
Aubrey Wood, the dealer who sold the gun to Smith, got to know Smith over about three years. Wood owns The Gun Shop near Lillington. Smith stopped by occasionally to chat with Wood at his shop, which is also a mechanic's garage at the end of a dirt road north of town.
Smith told Wood that he wanted a handgun like Don Johnson's in the television show "Miami Vice," the kind of small gun that police officers used, Wood said. But that type of gun was hard to find. Wood ended up finding a similar model, and he wrote Smith a brief letter in early September to let him know.
On Sept. 26, Smith went to the shop. Wood says he offered to give Smith a holster, along with the gun and ammunition, at no additional charge. Wood said that while he was distracted by a phone call, Smith was looking at the gun by the garage door. Next thing he knew, Smith was gone.
Wood said he got into his truck and sped down the road after Smith. He followed Smith's car through Lillington and onto U.S. 421 heading west. A lawman saw Wood speeding and pulled him over; Smith's car disappeared down the road.
Wood called the Sheriff's Office and reported what had happened. But almost immediately after returning to his shop, he said, he noticed a faded paperback book -- lessons on speed-reading -- lying on his desk. He flipped through the book and found a bank envelope with $400 in cash. A copy of a gun permit for Smith was also tucked inside. Wood said he told deputies what he had found.
A few days later, Woods received a letter with $24 from Smith. The letter read:
"You spoke to me of the complete total charge of $424 for the gun. I gave you my permit and 400 cash in the book that I handed you. Here is the additional 24 cash."
About two weeks later, Wood wrote Smith back with a blank copy of the federal form that is required for gun sales. Wood is supposed to keep a completed copy of the form. He also wrote that Smith owed $19.50 more.
Wood said he never heard any more about Smith until the Sheriff's Office called and said Smith was dead.
West, the sheriff's major, said the larceny charge was valid even if the gun was completely paid for because Smith had not completed the transaction.
"It would be like me going to buy a car and not filling out the title work and driving off in it," West said. "It's not registered in my name."
Wood said he considered the gun stolen without the paperwork.
"It's just a sad thing to happen. I hate the boy got killed over it, but he's the one who made the play," he said. "(The deputies) were doing their job, what they're trained to do. I'm proud of them. That officer could have died just as easy as (Smith). Over a stupid gun."
A quiet life
Smith moved from the Charlotte area, where he grew up, to Harnett County about three years ago. He lived in an old farmhouse on family land south of Old U.S. 421 and about five miles east of the Lee County line.
Smith was quiet and rarely had people over to visit, relatives said. He occasionally went to their homes on Mimms Road -- almost everyone on the dead-end road is family -- to use their telephones.
Over the years, he had worked in a grocery store, been a waiter at a restaurant and worked with computers, his mother said. This spring, he was taking lessons for driving a school bus in Lee County. He attended the class on the day he died, relatives said.
In 2000, Smith was charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest in Concord, near Charlotte. Maj. Monty Blackwell of the Concord Police Department said officers were patrolling a Cracker Barrel restaurant parking lot, the site of several break-ins, when they saw Smith sitting in a car after midnight. An officer asked Smith to roll down his window, but he refused. Smith stepped out of his car, yelled something and started running, Blackwell said. Warrants from Cabarrus County say that Smith bit and struck officers as they tried to arrest him.
"According to the officer, when they talked to him he just went ballistic," Blackwell said.
A charge of assault on an officer was dismissed after Smith performed community service, according to court records. He was found not guilty of another assault charge from the same incident. A judge found him guilty of resisting arrest. Smith appealed to Superior Court, where the charge was dismissed.
West said Harnett County deputies had tried since last fall to reach Smith. The deputies told Smith's relatives next door that he needed to get the larceny charge straightened out. An investigator also spoke with Smith's mother, Ruth Smith of Charlotte. Ruth Smith said she was told that her son's gun was paid for, that he just needed to fill out the paperwork.
She said she mentioned it to her son.
"He told me he thought he had it paid for, and that's the main thing; it was paid for," she said. She said she wishes her son had returned the gun. "Or just threw it in the river,'' she said. "It wasn't worth a life.''
Staff writer Matt Leclercq can be reached at 486-3551 or leclercqm@fayettevillenc.com http://www.fayettevillenc.com/obj_stories/2002/jun/n30harn.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Matt Leclercq
Staff writer
LILLINGTON -- Gregory Alfred Smith was shot to death on June 12 when sheriff's deputies broke into his house to serve a warrant charging him with the theft of a gun nine months earlier. But Smith had paid for the gun, except for $19.50. Smith
He failed, however, to fill out a federal form required for the purchase, and the dealer says that means the transaction was incomplete.
Sheriff's deputies say they tried for months to get Smith to turn himself in and straighten out the problem. No one knows why he didn't.
Four deputies with shotguns went to Smith's house in western Harnett County to serve the warrant. When two of them broke into the front door, Smith started shooting, according to the Sheriff's Office. Detective Richard Foley was hit in the shoulder, and he returned fire. Smith was killed with one shot in the stomach.
Inside the house, Smith's relatives later found the paperwork for the gun -- completed, signed and dated a week earlier.
The relatives say they believe the deputies used excessive force. They question whether Smith knew what was going on when the deputies broke in.
"They should have used tear gas or got relatives to take him out," said Smith's uncle, James Mimms of Sanford. "If I saw two people at the front door and two people at the back door with shotguns, I'd be reluctant to open the door, too."
Sheriff's Maj. Steve West said an internal investigation completed this week found that the deputies followed proper procedures for serving a warrant and using deadly force. The State Bureau of Investigation, which examines cases of lawmen involved in shootings, is still looking into the matter. The SBI will forward its findings to the district attorney.
"People have warrants every day, and we go out and arrest thousands of people," West said. "We don't have gunbattles -- they don't try to shoot deputies."
Perplexing case
The circumstances that turned Smith -- a 37-year-old who lived alone and kept to himself -- into a wanted man are baffling to those who knew him.
Staff photo by Tracy Wilcox
Aubrey Wood, owner of The Gun Shop in Lillington, holds the gun permit of Gregory Smith. Harnett County deputies shot and killed Smith when they attempted to serve a warrant at his residence.
Aubrey Wood, the dealer who sold the gun to Smith, got to know Smith over about three years. Wood owns The Gun Shop near Lillington. Smith stopped by occasionally to chat with Wood at his shop, which is also a mechanic's garage at the end of a dirt road north of town.
Smith told Wood that he wanted a handgun like Don Johnson's in the television show "Miami Vice," the kind of small gun that police officers used, Wood said. But that type of gun was hard to find. Wood ended up finding a similar model, and he wrote Smith a brief letter in early September to let him know.
On Sept. 26, Smith went to the shop. Wood says he offered to give Smith a holster, along with the gun and ammunition, at no additional charge. Wood said that while he was distracted by a phone call, Smith was looking at the gun by the garage door. Next thing he knew, Smith was gone.
Wood said he got into his truck and sped down the road after Smith. He followed Smith's car through Lillington and onto U.S. 421 heading west. A lawman saw Wood speeding and pulled him over; Smith's car disappeared down the road.
Wood called the Sheriff's Office and reported what had happened. But almost immediately after returning to his shop, he said, he noticed a faded paperback book -- lessons on speed-reading -- lying on his desk. He flipped through the book and found a bank envelope with $400 in cash. A copy of a gun permit for Smith was also tucked inside. Wood said he told deputies what he had found.
A few days later, Woods received a letter with $24 from Smith. The letter read:
"You spoke to me of the complete total charge of $424 for the gun. I gave you my permit and 400 cash in the book that I handed you. Here is the additional 24 cash."
About two weeks later, Wood wrote Smith back with a blank copy of the federal form that is required for gun sales. Wood is supposed to keep a completed copy of the form. He also wrote that Smith owed $19.50 more.
Wood said he never heard any more about Smith until the Sheriff's Office called and said Smith was dead.
West, the sheriff's major, said the larceny charge was valid even if the gun was completely paid for because Smith had not completed the transaction.
"It would be like me going to buy a car and not filling out the title work and driving off in it," West said. "It's not registered in my name."
Wood said he considered the gun stolen without the paperwork.
"It's just a sad thing to happen. I hate the boy got killed over it, but he's the one who made the play," he said. "(The deputies) were doing their job, what they're trained to do. I'm proud of them. That officer could have died just as easy as (Smith). Over a stupid gun."
A quiet life
Smith moved from the Charlotte area, where he grew up, to Harnett County about three years ago. He lived in an old farmhouse on family land south of Old U.S. 421 and about five miles east of the Lee County line.
Smith was quiet and rarely had people over to visit, relatives said. He occasionally went to their homes on Mimms Road -- almost everyone on the dead-end road is family -- to use their telephones.
Over the years, he had worked in a grocery store, been a waiter at a restaurant and worked with computers, his mother said. This spring, he was taking lessons for driving a school bus in Lee County. He attended the class on the day he died, relatives said.
In 2000, Smith was charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest in Concord, near Charlotte. Maj. Monty Blackwell of the Concord Police Department said officers were patrolling a Cracker Barrel restaurant parking lot, the site of several break-ins, when they saw Smith sitting in a car after midnight. An officer asked Smith to roll down his window, but he refused. Smith stepped out of his car, yelled something and started running, Blackwell said. Warrants from Cabarrus County say that Smith bit and struck officers as they tried to arrest him.
"According to the officer, when they talked to him he just went ballistic," Blackwell said.
A charge of assault on an officer was dismissed after Smith performed community service, according to court records. He was found not guilty of another assault charge from the same incident. A judge found him guilty of resisting arrest. Smith appealed to Superior Court, where the charge was dismissed.
West said Harnett County deputies had tried since last fall to reach Smith. The deputies told Smith's relatives next door that he needed to get the larceny charge straightened out. An investigator also spoke with Smith's mother, Ruth Smith of Charlotte. Ruth Smith said she was told that her son's gun was paid for, that he just needed to fill out the paperwork.
She said she mentioned it to her son.
"He told me he thought he had it paid for, and that's the main thing; it was paid for," she said. She said she wishes her son had returned the gun. "Or just threw it in the river,'' she said. "It wasn't worth a life.''
Staff writer Matt Leclercq can be reached at 486-3551 or leclercqm@fayettevillenc.com http://www.fayettevillenc.com/obj_stories/2002/jun/n30harn.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878