CASE AGAINST SHOOTING VICTIM TOSSED

Hampton Judge Rejects Drug Charge

The distinctive dark blue velvet bag once held a bottle of
whiskey.

By the time Hampton crime scene technicians found it in Jason Temple's
truck on the morning of Jan. 14 - six hours after Temple had been shot
in the chest, allegedly by a drunken Drug Enforcement Administration
agent - it was filled with about $300 worth of crack cocaine and marijuana.

Trouble was, General District Court Judge A.W. Patrick said Tuesday,
there was no proof that the drugs belonged to Temple, whom Hampton
police charged with possession with intent to distribute when he was
released from the hospital nine days later.

Patrick declined to send the charges against Temple to a grand jury,
and Commonwealth's Attorney Linda Curtis said it is unlikely she will
seek a direct indictment against him.

This brings to an end Temple's role as a defendant in the on-going
cases that resulted from the shootout in the parking lot at Rooney's
Grille and Bar shortly after midnight Jan. 14, but he is expected to
be called as a witness in two other cases.

According to their testimony in previous hearings, Temple and two
friends left Rooney's and were walking toward Temple's truck, when
three men who had been escorted out of the bar for fighting among
themselves started to shout at them. The groups exchanged insults, and
Temple's friend, Joseph Turk, took his gun from Temple's truck. He
showed it to the men who had been menacing them. The men pulled guns
of their own, and one of them started to shoot after Turk put his gun
on the hood of Temple's truck. Turk was wounded and fell to the ground.

Temple jumped into his truck and tried to drive away but was hit in
the chest as the truck was peppered with bullets.

Only then did the men tell Temple and Turk they were DEA
agents.

Last week, a Hampton grand jury returned indictments against Joseph
Armento, one of the agents. He is charged with malicious wounding,
using a firearm in the commission of a felony and shooting into an
occupied vehicle.

At a preliminary hearing, Armento's attorney said there was no proof
that his client shot the men.

Turk was charged with brandishing a weapon and was convicted in
General District court in April. He is appealing.

On Tuesday, Turk and Jason Keats testified they had been in Temple's
truck at various times that night and neither saw the blue bag. Keats
also testified that when he returned the truck to the parking lot
after borrowing it, he left it unlocked and couldn't say whether
anyone else had been in it.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Gochenour said Temple had plenty
of time to drop the bag when he jumped into the truck to flee the gunfire.

"It's the only reasonable explanation," Gochenour said, for how the
bag got there.

Although a Hampton police officer testified that he maintained a crime
scene log from shortly after 1 a.m. and that only police officers came
into the scene, Jason Temple's brother, Adam, contradicted him.

According to Adam Temple's testimony, he went to the parking lot
around 6:30 or 7 that morning because he wanted to see where his
brother had been shot.

He ducked underneath the yellow crime scene tape and walked,
uninterrupted, right up to the truck.

The two crime scene technicians who were working in it were startled,
he said.

They shooed him away, but one of the technicians came to speak to him
moments later.

Although his testimony about what she said was not allowed in court,
Jason Temple's attorney, Robert Boester, said afterward that the
technician's comments to Temple cast doubt on whether security at the
crime scene had been maintained.

Curtis, who leads the prosecution on all the cases, said Adam Temple's
testimony was a surprise to her because she had never heard of him or
his access to the truck before Tuesday.