Citizen Press
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2602477&BRD=2040&PAG=461&dept_id=232228&rfi=6
Grand Jury to hear facts in shooting
By Claudia JohnsonNovember 06, 2001

It will be up to a Giles County Grand Jury to decide whether a Giles
County man will face charges for shooting another man to death during an
alleged robbery attempt.

Giles County Sheriff Eddie Bass said that 52-year-old Clarence “Shorty”
Walls fired a handgun that killed Alberto Ravel, 22, as Ravel and
another man attempted to rob Walls near Coastal Lumber Company last
Friday morning.

Ravel died at the scene and the second man fled on foot. Both men were
wearing ski masks, the sheriff said.

A suspect was later picked up on the job at Coastal Lumber Company but
denied being
Ravel’s accomplice in the holdup attempt. The suspect, according to
Bass, is an illegal immigrant. Authorities are withholding the man’s
name, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been notified.

“We are still investigating whether this man was the accomplice,” Bass
said. “We’re holding him until we determine if we will be able to charge
him. Anyway, the INS will be picking him up.”

Bass said his investigators found a spot in the woods where the two men
had been hiding, lying in wait for Walls who was dumping scrap lumber in
a fill space shortly before 6 a.m. Friday. Walls told officers the two
men suddenly appeared out of the woods with masks on their faces, and
one of them pulled a handgun on him.

That’s when Walls fired his own .22 caliber magnum, killing Ravel. Bass
said Walls drove to a home on Providence Road and asked that law
enforcement officials be notified.

“In my opinion, Mr. Walls acted totally in self defense,” the sheriff
said. “It was a very rural area, just before daylight. He acted exactly
as I would have.”

The facts of the case will be presented to the grand jury, which meets
next week.

Ravel was a former employee of the lumber company who reportedly lived
in Lawrenceburg.

FAIR USE

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