Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501200060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mall manager Mike Thornton said as many as a dozen security officers already patrol the mall and parking lot on Friday and Saturday nights. But after last Friday, security will be increased around the theater in particular.
Fred Van Noy, vice president and general manager of Carmike Cinemas, which operates the Valley View cinema, said the theater also has added its own security.
The trouble started around 9 p.m. Friday. One witness - Bryan Mitchell, a 17-year-old Glenvar High School student - said he was watching the 7:30 showing of "Higher Learning" when a man stood up and shoved a man in the row behind him. Mitchell said the man who started the altercation had been shining a red dot on the screen that Mitchell and his friends thought was a laser sight for a gun.
Mitchell said he heard someone say, "He's got a gun." That's when people headed for the doors.
"We ran all the way out of the mall and into the parking lot," Mitchell said. They got in their car and "didn't stop until we got to Salem."
There were conflicting reports about whether the man who started the fight actually had a gun.
Van Noy said he was told the man only reached into his pocket. Mitchell said he saw something that looked like a gun, but couldn't be sure. And a theater employee, who did not want her name used, said that when she saw the man again later, he had a pistol tucked in the back of his pants.
Later Friday night, Vernon Riley was beaten by two men outside the mall entrance near the theater, according to a Roanoke police news release. Both assailants fled in a car.
Riley, who ran out of the theater with the others earlier, said one of the men who beat him started the ruckus during the movie.
He said he spent most the night at Roanoke Memorial Hospital waiting for an oral surgeon to stitch cuts in his mouth and reset several of his teeth.
Riley said that if mall security officers had stayed to monitor the theater after the first incident, he might have been spared his injuries.
Thornton, the mall manager, said security inside the theater is the responsibility of Carmike Cinemas. But if managers had asked the security officers to stay around the theater, they probably would have.
Van Noy, the Carmike vice president, said his company is not responsible for what happened to Riley, because it happened outside the theater.
"Our manager, if he felt that a situation was not under control and there was security available, I'm sure he would have taken advantage of it."
by CNB