Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991                   TAG: 9104150324
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: RON BROWN and LAURENCE HAMMACK/ STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN WALKING TO CHURCH IN CITY ROBBED OF PURSE

Bobbie June Hutchinson of Staunton Avenue Northwest told police she was walking in the 1200 block of 13th Street Northwest about 4 p.m. when a young man approached and asked how she was doing.

The man then jerked Hutchinson's shoulder bag, knocking her to the ground, and fled with the purse, which contained $2. Hutchinson suffered a cut to her left palm as she fell on gravel.

It was the second time in two weeks that a woman was robbed as she went to or left a Roanoke church.

Police said today that they are also investigating two other purse snatchings that happened over the weekend: A woman was robbed at gunpoint of her purse and a bag of groceries outside her Ordway Drive apartment and a woman walking on Patterson Avenue told police a man snatched her purse and fled.

Area police also reported the following incidents:

A 27-year-old Bedford County man suffered lacerations and head injuries after he attempted to jump off a moving train in Bedford on Sunday, authorities said.

A crew member from a Norfolk Southern train spotted Calvin Ray Steptoe lying next to the tracks near Macon Street in the western part of the city about 3 p.m.

Steptoe was riding a westbound train from Lynchburg earlier in the day when he tried to jump free and struck an unknown object, Bedford police said.

Steptoe was in critical condition today at the University of Virginia Hospital.

A 17-year-old Southwest Roanoke youth was shot in the foot while walking through the Lansdowne housing project Saturday afternoon.

Clarence Barrett, 17, of 14th Street said he was shot after another teen-ager approached him and demanded money.

The other youth fled with $20. Barrett was treated at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Robbie Wayne Wilkerson, 23, suffered a black eye, broken nose, bruised kidneys and a variety of cuts after a fight with another man Friday at his Southeast Roanoke home.

Wilkerson told police he was hit several times with a knife handle as he tried to hold off his assailant with a baseball bat. He obtained warrants after being released from the hospital.

Roanoke police watched a drug transaction in progress on Staunton Avenue Northwest Friday night. They stopped a 15-year-old youth who allegedly threw down a clear plastic bag with five rocks of crack cocaine inside.

The youth was taken to Coyner Springs Juvenile Detention Center on charges of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute.

A 23-year-old Northwest Roanoke man was hit on the head with a rock following a dispute outside a city nightclub early Saturday. Keith Edward Spencer of Highland Farm Road was treated for a cut on his left eye.