OFFICER NOT INDICTED FOR FATAL SHOOTING

Suspect's 'Aggressive Move' May Have Been Reaching For Cell Phone

Although it expressed sympathy to the victim's family, a Letcher County
grand jury yesterday declined to indict a Kentucky State Police officer who
shot and killed an unarmed man during a January drug deal in Jenkins.

James E. Alexander, 62, of Roanoke, Va., was shot twice with an automatic
rifle Jan. 14 by state police Sgt. Bobby Day during a drug investigation
using undercover officers at a Jenkins house. There were reports afterward
that Alexander was shot when he reached under his jacket for a cell phone,
said Sgt. Phil Crumpton, a state police spokesman in Frankfort.

"You're looking at a high-stress situation when someone is given a specific
order and he makes an aggressive move that we feel is a threat to us,"
Crumpton said. "That's what these things narrow down to."

The Letcher County grand jury said it conducted an extensive investigation
into the incident and found "that the above shooting and resulting death of
James Alexander was a justifiable use of deadly force under the known facts
and circumstances that existed immediately prior to said shooting.

"The Letcher County grand jury extends its sympathy to the family of Mr.
Alexander, but finds no evidence of criminal conduct in connection with his
death."

Crumpton said Day is doing administrative duty and is expected to return to
active duty "very soon."

Alexander's family members and friends appeared upset yesterday.

"If they didn't find any drugs on him or guns on him, how can they do that?"
asked Alexander's uncle, James L. Alexander, 78, of Lebanon, Va.

The Virginia Department of Corrections had no record of Alexander being
imprisoned. But his uncle said Alexander served several years in federal
prison on a drug charge about 15 years ago.

Beverly Hunt, 38, of Roa-noke, was outraged.

"Even if he was a drug dealer, how can they justify shooting James twice
when he wasn't armed?" she asked, sobbing. "I was with James for 21/2 years.
He never carried a gun.

"They're just covering up. They've done it again. They've done it again.
I've talked to the police and the way they were talking, I could tell they
were thinking: We just got another black man off the street."

The shooting occurred in the kitchen of a yellow frame house on a steep
hillside in Jenkins, a tidy, one-time company coal town founded in 1911. The
sign on the house said it belonged to Henry Cooper, but neighbors said
Cooper had died and a man he had raised, Charles "Buckwheat" Wallace, lived
in the house.

Court records show that Wallace, 35, was arrested on felony charges of
selling marijuana in 1991 and cultivating six marijuana plants in 1998, and
a misdemeanor charge of possessing marijuana in 1992. He received probation
on the two felonies.

Along with state police Lt. Jerry Hall, the grand jury said in its report
that it interviewed Sgt. Sean Welch, Day's supervisor on a special-response
team, and reviewed reports, videos and other statements by witnesses.

Letcher Commonwealth's Attorney Edison Banks could not be reached. But
Crumpton said the state police "followed the proper procedure and the grand
jury decided not to indict Sgt. Day."