Guilty Verdict In Smith Case Draws Local Reaction

Newtown residents this week reacted with shock and disappointment to the news of Scott Smith’s conviction for manslaughter.

Smith, a 1990 graduate of Newtown High School, was found guilty in Litchfield Superior Court Monday for the December 29, 1998 shooting of New Milford resident Franklyn Reid at point-blank range. Smith was on duty as a New Milford police officer at the time of the incident. He becomes the first Connecticut police officer to be charged with murder for an action committed in the line of duty. The jury acquitted Smith of murder.

  Smith and other officers were in pursuit of Reid, who was wanted for failure to appear in court on several charges, including violation of probation and telephone harassment. Just before the shooting, Reid had led Smith on a brief foot chase. Smith apprehended the suspect, according to witnesses, along the roadside of Route 202. According to Smith, Reid made a sudden movement while on the ground, prompting the officer to discharge his weapon. The suspect was killed instantly.

   The 28-year-old officer faces five to 40 years in prison at his May 5 sentencing.

Smith said he shot Reid, 27, because he believed the suspect was reaching for a weapon. Reid was unarmed, though a short folding knife was discovered in the pocket of a jacket found a few feet away from his body.

“When he made that classic move, I thought, ‘Oh [expletive], I’m dead,’” Smith testified last week.

Prosecution witnesses testified they saw Reid sitting or lying down moments before the shooting; an expert testified for prosecutors that Smith’s boot print was on Reid’s shirt.

Despite efforts by Smith and his legal team to prove his innocence, the jury was apparently unable to see beyond the fact that Smith shot a man while on the ground.

Some Newtown residents wonder what kind of precedent this case sets. Newtown resident Joe Bojnowski, a Board of Selectmen member, said he hopes the case will be reconsidered – and not just because Scott Smith is a Newtown boy.

“What would we have done under those circumstances? Unless we’ve been in that situation, we don’t know,” he said Wednesday. “It seems like Scott was a good guy who found himself in an unfortunate set of circumstances. One could question the amount of training. It’s apparent to me that he had to make a couple of quick decisions in which he thought his life was on the line. The jury found him guilty of manslaughter because they didn’t find the situation to be what Scott perceived it to be.”

Scott Smith’s conviction Monday follows the acquittals last month of four white New York City police officers in the shooting death of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo.

 Mr Bojnowski said it was unfortunate that the Smith trial took place at the same time.

Allen McGrady, the only black juror, told The News Times of Danbury that race played no role in the jury’s deliberations, which began Thursday afternoon.

“It wasn’t brought up once,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t in the back of minds.”

Smith shook his head when the verdict was read, but made no other comment.

Over the objections of Smith’s lawyers, Judge Charles Gill allowed the jury to consider the less serious charges of intentional and negligent manslaughter, in addition to murder.

“A trillion, trillion, trillion thanks to the jury, for your courage to do the right thing,” said Reid’s mother, Pearlyn Reid, after the verdict.

Roger Vann, the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he would have preferred a murder conviction. But he said the manslaughter verdict should send a message to all police officers who “needlessly take lives.”

“This verdict ought to be a cue to those involved to improve the relationship between the community and police to open up a dialogue about how things can change,” said Vann.

The charges against Smith initially brought protests from hundreds of police officers. But the Reid case focused less on race than on the recent spate of suspects killed by Connecticut police officers. Between December 1998 and November 1999, nine people were killed and a 10th wounded in police shootings in the state.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)