Father's anguish leads to probes into son's death

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He left Spartanburg Regional Medical Center without seeing the body, after he said he was discouraged from doing so by law enforcement.

And that didn't sit well with him.

So, despite the early hour, distraught and searching for answers, he picked up the phone and started dialing. He called the U.S. Department of Justice, the state Attorney General's office, and the FBI, all to no avail, he said.

"I was stuck. I was frustrated," Landrum said Monday from his Spartanburg home.

Ten days later, his son's death is now the subject of a State Law Enforcement Division investigation, and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition civil liberties organization has, on his behalf, contacted the justice department in hopes the case will be prosecuted under the federal hate crimes law.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, leader and founder of Rainbow/PUSH, was in the Greenville area Monday, speaking on behalf of Landrum and speaking out against what he calls excessive police force in the Upstate, in South Carolina and across the nation.

"Police, their job is to deter crime," Jackson told The Greenville News Monday. "To be judge, jury and executioner is not their role."

The shooting death of Landrum's son, Aaron Clark Gray, is one of two incidents in the Upstate this month that Jackson and his organization say went beyond the scope of acceptable police action.

Last week, Larry Donnell Lewis, 36, required medical treatment after a Greenville police officer chased him at Jesse Jackson Townhomes and arrested him. Police said he was trespassing in a vacant apartment there, and he has been charged with trespassing, assaulting an officer and loitering to engage in drug activity, according to warrants and tickets.

At a community meeting Monday near the townhomes, about 60 residents raised concerns about how police respond.

"People feel they do not have on-site security," Jackson said. "It's too slow and sometimes hostile."

Greenville police Chief Willie Johnson said residents who have witnessed specific problems should call the police department.

He gave out his own phone number, 467-5310, and encouraged people to call him directly.

"You can call around the clock," he said. "And I guarantee I will call you back. It ain't going to hang out there."

City officials have said they do not believe the police did anything wrong in the Lewis case, but called for an impartial probe by SLED and the FBI. The Greenville NAACP also has called from an investigation.

In Gray's case, Spartanburg police report that two undercover narcotics agents were completing a drug deal with him the night of Feb. 10. When they attempted to arrest him, he tried to run them over with his car, said Maj. Dan Johnson, spokesman for the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department.

Officers responded by firing their weapons, Johnson said.

The case has been turned over to the State Law Enforcement Division, and the two officers involved have been placed on paid, administrative leave, he said.

SLED spokesman Stacy Drakeford confirmed his agency had been called in to investigate, but declined further comment.

Rainbow/PUSH has assigned an attorney to handle Gray's case, and last week the group contacted the U.S. Justice Department to request that a case file be opened.

"They have a particular role to play. Arrest and investigation, not trial and execution," said Rainbow/PUSH attorney Davida Mathis. "It's a denial of civil rights and criminal rights."

Landrum said when he arrived at the hospital the night of his son's death, law enforcement officials told him Gray had been shot three times.

But two days later, when he saw the body for the first time at the funeral home, he counted seven bullet holes - five in his head and face and two in his chest. He said at least one of those appeared to have been fired at "point-blank range."

The sheriff's department declined comment, pending SLED's investigation.

Landrum, who works as an electrical contractor and senior electronic technician at a local plant, said his son may have sold drugs, but he did not deserve to die for it. He said Gray, a former linebacker for Spartanburg High School, was taking classes at a local technical college to follow in his footsteps and be an electrical technician.

"He had a right to go to trial and do his time," Landrum said.

Jackson of Rainbow/PUSH has classified the shooting as a hate crime and says the Spartanburg case reflects a "bigger pattern of hate crimes" across the country. He addressed the issue earlier this week while preaching at New Shady Grove Church in Pelzer Sunday morning and during a press conference in Spartanburg Monday morning.

"The connection, in both cases, the victims were black and they were in police custody," Jackson said.

The Greenville arrest of Larry Lewis has not been turned over to the justice department, Rainbow/PUSH officials said.

Landrum said he wants only to see the officers who fired on his son held accountable.

"These two cops were white, and my boy is black. This was a hate crime of the worst magnitude," Landrum said. "Rodney King got to live. My boy got slaughtered. My boy didn't get to live."

Staff writer Heidi Coryell Williams can be reached at 306-3302. Staff writer Anna B. Brutzman contributed to this article.