Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 12, 1993 TAG: 9310120184
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
Donald Damon, 34, was awakened by his wife on Sept. 8 when she saw the front doorknob at their home begin to turn. Damon grabbed a pistol and ran outside.
"It was like Alfred Hitchcock with the doorknob moving and the wife screaming," said Richard Brydges, Damon's attorney. "He wakes up out of a dead sleep and there's a man urinating on his porch.
"He tells him, `Get off my property.' The guy grabs hold of him and said, `I'm not going to get off.' He swung the gun and hit him in the side of the head," Brydges said.
But the sailor, Stephen Reyes, had a different version of the incident.
Reyes, through his attorney, said he had been staying with a friend who lives next door to Damon. He said he had been out drinking, went up to the wrong house by mistake and tried to open the door.
"It's a single-story brick ranch house," said Greg Wright, Reyes' attorney. "They all look the same. He had to go to the bathroom, rather badly. He'd had a couple of drinks."
Reyes told police that Damon hit him in the head with the gun and then kicked him when he fell to the ground. He needed 10 stitches to close his head wound.
Damon's wife, Denise, said Reyes charged at her husband and hit him on his shoulders. She was outraged by the felony charge against her husband, which could result in a five-year prison term.
"The police act like we were waiting on the curb for this jerk to come along," she said.
Reyes was charged with trespassing, assault and urinating in public and could get up to a year in jail and $2,500 in fines.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys said that, in general, deadly force can't be used to protect property outside the home.
by CNB