N.C. Police Kill Student Accused In PlayStation 3 Robbery
WILMINGTON, N.C. — A prosecutor pledged Monday to investigate the death of a college student who was shot as deputies tried to serve warrants accusing him of stealing two Playstation 3 video game systems.
Peyton Strickland, 18, died Friday at the house he shared with three roommates following a raid by officers from a special unit of the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Department.
“No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection,” Ben David, district attorney of New Hanover County, said during a news conference.
Three deputy sheriffs have been on paid leave since the shooting Friday night, said county Sheriff Sid Causey. It is routine to put officers on leave if they fire their weapons.
David said he expected a report from the State Bureau of Investigation within a week and wouldn’t comment on the case until he had read the report.
The prosecutor declined to discuss details of the case, but said he had talked with Strickland’s father, Raleigh lawyer Don Strickland.
A spokesman for the Strickland family and a member of Don Strickland’s law firm said the family would wait until at least after Peyton Strickland’s funeral Wednesday to comment.
Peyton Strickland’s roommate, Mike Rhoton, said Strickland was unarmed, but may have been holding a video game controller when he went to the door as it was bashed in by officers.
Causey would not comment on why officers felt it necessary to call in his department’s emergency response team to conduct what he termed a “high risk” search.
“If this boy would’ve come to the door, opened the door, we probably wouldn’t be talking,” Causey said Sunday.
Arrest warrants alleged that Strickland, a student at Cape Fear Community College, and a University of North Carolina at Wilmington student stole two PlayStation units from another UNC Wilmington student on the day the game system was introduced.
The sheriff said the robbery victim had waited three days in line to buy the units for $641 each at a Wal-Mart. He was unloading the units at his campus apartment Nov. 17 when one man beat him to the ground while another took the PlayStations, Causey said.
“I think anytime that someone beats a person severely and commits an armed robbery, I certainly would consider him a risk and a danger,” Causey said.
Source: WRAL
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