Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 17, 1993 TAG: 9307170093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
William Kent Smith, 25, testified that he was drawn into a feud between his brother and another man when he agreed to go to Eureka Park the afternoon of Feb. 1 as an armed backup.
He didn't even know Anthony Wade, the 21-year-old man he wounded, Smith told Roanoke Circuit Judge Diane Strickland.
Wade was playing cards in the gym when he was shot in the left side. Smith testified that he pulled his .380-semiautomatic handgun only because he thought Wade was going for his own gun during an argument with Smith's brother.
Smith has denied shooting Wade intentionally, saying his gun went off during a struggle. But he was convicted earlier this year of malicious wounding.
"I cannot for the life of me understand what possessed you to arm yourself that day and go into the gym," Strickland told Smith.
Witnesses have testified that Wade was sitting on the bottom row of bleachers, playing cards, when he was approached by Smith and his brother, Buford French.
French and Wade had been involved in an "ongoing" dispute, authorities said.
Although Smith said Wade was reaching for a gun, other witnesses said his only motion was to take off his jacket - apparently for a fight - after French walked up and punched him.
Smith's lawyer, Onzlee Ware, said his client had never been in trouble before, but nonetheless fell into a trap that claims many young men.
"We just have too many guns in our society," Ware said. "It's just too easy to get guns."
But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mac Doubles warned Strickland "not to be diverted by the social and political issues of gun control," but instead to focus on the actions of one gun-toting young man.
by CNB