Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990 TAG: 9004120572
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was 3 a.m. Tuesday, and Turner was stranded in one of Roanoke's most crime-ridden areas - the 700 block of Hunt Avenue Northwest.
Before he could find a telephone and call for help, Turner was attacked by a group of men, beaten with a steel pipe and left bleeding in a parking lot.
It was the third serious assault within the past week in the area of Hunt Avenue and the adjacent Lincoln Terrace housing project, Roanoke police said Wednesday.
In a telephone interview from his bed at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Turner said Wednesday that he did nothing to provoke the attack.
"I was minding my own business," he said. Turner, a 35-year-old construction worker from Plantation Road, said he was in the area after giving a friend a ride home.
When his car wouldn't start, Turner said, he decided to walk to a nearby service station and call for help. The route took him past an open door of an apartment where several people had congregated in the dark.
"I didn't even look in their direction," Turner said. "But this one kid ran up to me and said, `What are you doing here?' The next thing I knew there were seven or eight of them on me."
Suffering from neck, head and back injuries, Turner was able to crawl to a nearby parking lot and ask for help from apartment residents.
Turner says he remembers making it to his car. The next thing he remembers, he said, was someone in the emergency room asking him if he knew what day it was.
The beating was similar to others that have happened in the area, police said.
All of the victims have reported being attacked by a group of at least five men. Most of the victims have been from other parts of town. And two of the three most recent attacks have happened late at night.
On Sunday, a Salem man told police that he was pulled from his car in Lincoln Terrace and beaten by several men who demanded money.
Last Thursday night, a woman told police that she was beaten by a group of men as she visited friends at the housing project. The woman was struck in the head with a bottle and had a necklace ripped from her neck. She suffered a serious head injury and a ruptured spleen.
And two weeks ago, an employee of a used-car dealership was attacked when he went to the housing project to repossess a car. The employee told police that he was beaten by a group of men after he declined an offer to buy some crack cocaine.
Turner, a Vietnam veteran, said he never expected to see such violence in Roanoke.
"I went overseas to fight for my country, and it's pretty bad when you have to come back here and fight to live in your own community," he said.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Apr. 14, 1990\ Correction
Cynthia D. Hollingsworth of Roanoke, who was assaulted at the Lincoln Terrace housing project Friday, April 6, said she was there to pick up someone who was visiting a friend and that she suffered a collapsed lung in the attack. A story in Saturday's paper said she had been there to visit a friend. A story in Thursday's paper based on information from police said she suffered a ruptured spleen, which Hollingsworth said was incorrect.
Memo: correction