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

DATE: MONDAY, May 29, 1995                   TAG: 9505300099
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

YOUTHS RIOT AT PARK

It took law enforcement authorities more than three hours to break up a fight involving about 125 young people from Wytheville and Galax in Elizabeth Brown Memorial Park here early Sunday.

Police would get things under control in one part of the park, but a new fight would flare up in another, said State Police Lt. L.C. Bailey.

Ten people were charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, he said, and two troopers were hurt. One suffered a broken finger; the other twisted his back during the fray.

Albert Newberry, Wytheville public safety director, said 95 officers turned out in response to the disturbance. They included 69 state police from throughout the region in riot gear, 15 Wytheville police, 10 Wythe County officials and one state Game and Inland Fisheries officer.

Newberry said authorities were still piecing together what sparked the riot, but it seemed to have started with a fight that broke out inside the Wytheville Community Center, where a graduation party was being held.

The fight began about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, and it wasn't until 3 a.m. Sunday that the resulting fracas was completely under control.

After the initial disturbance, Newberry said, someone began ramming a car into other cars in the parking lot outside the community center. Some car windows were also broken. The Wytheville Police Department was called, he said, and quickly realized more help would be needed.

Newberry said authorities tried to settle the problem peacefully at the community center and the adjacent park, but were unable to do so. He said some of the same people from Wytheville and Galax had been involved in smaller fights on previous occasions, but never anything approaching this scale.

Trouble continued when some of the rioters got into the town's 911 emergency dispatch center and had to be cleared from there and from Spring Street outside the dispatch center. The rioters also continued with taunts and name-calling of police at the Wythe County Jail, and had to be cleared from that area as well.

The Wythe County Rescue Squad treated some of the battlers, who had been sprayed with Mace to stop them from fighting.

by CNB