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NOT THE DAILY NEWS
12/11/96 Vol. 10, No. 50
LAWSUIT SAYS
RACE REASON
FOR ARREST
A young Athens man has filed suit claiming that
he was arrested simply because he is black and
that the arresting officer whispered that reason in
his ear and then failed a lie detector test when he
denied it.
Renaldo Stevens, who is the stepson of Ath-
ens-Clarke County Police Detective Charles Crew,
was, according to information contained in the law
suit filed in Superior Court here last week, arrested
m a Golden Pantry convenience store on Lexing
ton Road around midnight April 14. According to
the lawsuit, A-CC police officers Timothy Nix and
Greg Hall (Hall is no longer with the police depart
ment' questioned him about his identity and then
arrested him, handcuffing him, searching him and
taking mm to jail.
“During the course of this false arrest.” the law
suit claims, "Plaintiff demanded to know why he was
being arrested Defendant Nix whispered in
D laintiffs ear stating that the reason for the arrest
was because Plaintiff was black.’
The lawsuit further claims that although Officer
Nix wrote in the citation and in the police report
that Plaintiff was "extremely intoxicated and had
very slurred speech. ' that the officers adminis
tered no sobriety tests of any kind and recovered
no alcohol from the plaintiff or from his car
According to the lawsuit. Officer Nix failed .a
polygraph test administered in connection with a
police department internal investigation, and that
plaint^ Stevens passed the test.
Renaldo Stevens is suing Timothy Nix, Greg
Hail, former Police Chief Ronald Chandler, Acting
Police Chief Mark Wallace and Athe.,s-Clarke
County for assau!' . cattery, false arrest, illegal
search, false imprisonment, violation of r ights guar
anteed under the constitutions of the United States
and the State of Georgia and negligent hiring and
retention.
Stevens is seeking an injunction preventing de
fendants from engaging in such misconduct in the
future, general damages, punitive damages and
attorney's fees
County Attorney Ernie DePascale said Monday
night that he has not read the lawsuit, though he
had talked to the plaintiff's attorney.
DePascale said in general that "they're very in
sistent upon this case., of course the officers say
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BY GIVING THEIR EMPLOYEES A SAFETY
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he had a lot to say. They asked him who he was;
he didn’t like that. They say he said over and over
again, 'You're just arresting me because I'm black.”
DePascale said he was surprised that the at
torneys included reference to the polygraph test in
their complaint and he said such tests are gener
ally unreliable and that the police themselves don't
like to rely on them.
DePascale said the internal investigation has
been re-opened to get at the question of whether
or not the officers had probable cause to stop Stevens
and to arrest him. He also said police tell him it's not
common pract'ce to administer sobriety tests in cases
where automobiles are not involved.
“They re saying he was not intoxicated,’
DePascale said, "so we're going back and looking
for anything that might have suggested he was.'
(Pete McCommons)
Reporter Finds
The Beat Never
Stops in Athens
A week ago Monday a large crowd turned out
to hear a description of the proposed Oconee River
Greenway, planned as a path along the river that
may actually make accessible the stream that Ath
ens has for the most part turned iis back on. Those
through whose backyards it will pass were, to say
the least, not enthusiastic about losing 100 feet of
yard so that others may use it for fornication, as
one woman put it in slightly earthier language
Afterward, at Athens Brewing Co. for a pint of
Printer's Ink here comes the Suburban Culture
Shock jazz quartet with some cool rhythms off to
the side while the college crowd sucks up the cut-
rate Budweiser at the bar; Mike Jones on sax,
Henry Parker on drums, Joe Burns on guitar and
Rob Carter on bass. Wednesday evening, on to
Blue Sky coffee house to catch Jessica Parlapiano
as the featured performer at the Athens Poetry
Slam and Jigsaw Pieces Open Mike. With a real
name like that, what else could she be playing?
Blue Sky is a wall to wall study hall for finals.
People cram four to a table, their highlighters in
one hand and their cream cheese brownies in the
other. Downstairs Steve Scurry, a tall, slender fel
low in ponytail, khakis and plaid shirt reads with
expression his poems about nature and the envi
ronment and the native Americans.Poet-about-
town David Oates fills in next with some little jew
els of Athens scenes rendered into a few telling
words — small snapshots of Athens observations.
As the scene recedes, a nervous kid with an all-
out-shaved head gets up and begins reading his
poetrv from handwritten pages in a notebook. Had
to leave before Parlapiano went on.
Fast-forward to Friday evening and Hugh
j
Hodgson Hall at UGA Performing Arts Center and
the pianist Andre Watts. The stage is completely
bare save for a Steinway Concert Grand. The hall
is completely filled. Watts enters in midnight blue
tails with a build and gait like a 155-pound (real)
wrestler. He flicks the tails behind him at the bench
and commands the Steinway as one might cause
a cheetah to perform, if one had the mind and the
will to dominate and bring out the wild energy burn
ing in those sinews like the music drawn into the
strings of the Steinway, waiting to be set free by
hands that pound the keys like the wings of some
powerful raptor that through pure heart and alac
rity triumphs over the strength of the beast it con-
fionts. Then the scene shifts to Saturday night and
the 40 Watt, where it’s always standing-room only
and this time packed from bar to earplug machine
in anticipation of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion,
which does. All in all, just a few of the distractions
available in the city that never sleeDs as long as it
can get coffee. (PMc)
Qolden Pantry
Changes To Beer,
Tobacco & Lottery
At Prince Store
The Golden Pantry convenience store at the
corner of Prince Avenue & Park Avenue across from
Athens Regional Medical Center is closing, appar
ently to re-open as a tobacco and beer store that
will also sell lottery tickets and gasoline, accord
ing to company sources.
Although the new store will be owned by Golden
Pantry, it v..il be operated under a different name and
will sell beei by the case and cigarettes by the car
ton, as well as lottery tickets and gasoline.
Sunday, Dec. 15, will apparently be the
location's last day as a convenience and food store.
Golden Pantry earlier in the year stopped selling
lottery tickets after failing to gain an increased per
centage of sales.
A call to Golden Pantry headquarters Monday
morning elicited surprise from the receptionist who
answered the telephone. “I didn't know that,’ she
said. The call was referred to marketing, where
“DebDie’ responded that “No announcement has
been made to that effect’ and referred the call to
Golden Pantry President Mike Griffith.
At press-time Mike Griffith had net responded
to repeated telephone messages. (PMc)
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