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Friday, Jul. 10, 2009

Police: Lexington officers acted properly in fatal shooting

Lavonna Marie Dillon died early Thursday after she apparently made her last miscalculation in a life suddenly full of them.

The 30-year-old mother of two young daughters, troubled by a chronic lack of money, a raft of traffic citations and two recent evictions, walked into the Shell station at 1070 Newtown Pike about 2:45 a.m. and, according to police, robbed the station, took the store clerk hostage and tried to escape through the back exit. Two Lexington police officers shot and killed Dillon, Assistant Chief Michael Bosse said. He said Dillon, who was armed with a pistol, had fired multiple rounds at them from the back door.

She was pronounced dead less than four hours later at the University of Kentucky Hospital.

An investigation Thursday indicated that Lt. Raymond Roller and Officer Jarrod Jones were justified in their use of deadly force against Dillon, Bosse said. Will McMinoway, a third officer at the scene, was not involved in the shooting, Bosse said.

Thursday's shooting was the first officer-involved shooting since last summer, when officers shot Warren Douglas Rayburn after he pointed his loaded semi-automatic assault rifle at them during an early-morning domestic violence call. Rayburn recovered from his injuries.

Things had been coming apart for Dillon for a while, according to those who knew her.

Her ex-husband, Steve Sovann Uy, who lives in Nashville, said he hasn't spoken to Dillon in five years. Records show that they were married for three years but were divorced in 2005.

"She's trouble," he said. "I had to walk away from her."

Her two daughters, ages 2 and 5, were moved to their father's house a month ago. They are safe, said Derio Jones, the girls' father, who declined to comment further.

Her stepfather, Blaine Stewart, said the family was not able yet to make sense of it and was in deep mourning.

Her neighbors on Anniston Drive said Dillon was always friendly and waved when she was out and about. They also said that at Halloween, her little girls were dressed up and looked cute. The neighbors said they thought she worked hard and that she was a single mother who struggled.

It was only in recent months that they became concerned about her frequent late-night visitors and all the in-and-out traffic. There had even been a rumor that her car had been at the scene of a robbery of a nearby Cash Express just two weeks ago.

Neighbors laughed at that at the time.

Police spokesman Lt. Ron Compton, when asked about the Cash Express robbery, said: "We are looking into the fact that there may be other robberies involved with this particular suspect."

The neighbors shook their heads in disbelief.

"She had to be really bad off to do what she did," said Kathy Skinner, who lived next door. "I think this was drugs. But I can't say because I didn't see it. It just seemed that once her kids were taken from her by their father, she just lost it entirely."

That was probably for the kids' own good, Skinner said. That was a month or so ago, about the same time that Dillon was evicted from the duplex on Anniston, Skinner said.

Still, "she was an intelligent woman," said Rosa Bailey, another neighbor. "We are all desperate for money at some time or another. Even the landlord tried to help. When he put the stuff out on the curb, he waited with it so nobody would go through it. Someone came with a U-Haul. We never saw her again."

Dillon once told Skinner that if she needed money to please let her know, she would help, $5, $10, "just let her know."

Skinner wishes she could have helped Dillon.

There had been no indication until Thursday that Dillon would turn to violent crime. She had a string of convictions for violations like not having a dog on a leash, shoplifting and prostitution. Her most recent arrest was in May for non-payment of fines.