Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505300109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Long
When 20-year-old Robbie Smith walks into a Botetourt County courtroom Tuesday morning to be sentenced for his role in ransacking a house in Blue Ridge, his appearance will represent more than the final chapter of a case of impetuous, youthful violence run amok.
Law enforcement officials had once dubbed the actions of Smith and seven associates as mob violence.
Now, those same officials are saying that it is part of a disturbing trend in which festering teen-age disagreements from Williamson Road spill over into Botetourt County homes.
"This is a Williamson Road case," says Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Hagan. "It's about kids out of control on parking lots at night. There are gangs of young people who do nothing but ride up and down Williamson Road every night."
With little to do, those youngsters sometimes start picking at each other over inconsequential things, Hagan says. The mob violence case is a perfect example.
The charges stemmed from a confrontation between two rival groups that ended in the beating of one young man and the pilfering and vandalizing of a house in Blue Ridge. It was a feud that started in a parking lot, built in intensity for two weeks, and ended with eight people charged with crimes.
The case gained notoriety when Hagan charged the participants with mob violence, a crime normally reserved for prison riots where a specific person cannot be identified as the one who injured another.
In the Botetourt cases, investigators were able later to identify those having a direct role in the beating; ultimately two juveniles were convicted of malicious wounding, not mob violence. Those two and five other defendants were convicted on theft charges.
Charges against an eighth were dropped at a preliminary hearing after a witness recanted his story.
In late August last year, 17-year-old Mike Rosenhauer and some friends were hanging out on the parking lot of Kroger at Towne Square shopping center, just two blocks from Williamson Road, when Rosenhauer and Smith started a friendly wrestling match with each other.
During the scuffle, Rosenhauer's $20 Charles Oakley sunglasses fell to the ground. As the two young men continued to wrestle, a friend of Smith's picked up the glasses and tucked them away.
When Rosenhauer realized the glasses were gone, he demanded them back. Smith and his friends reacted angrily, Hagan says.
"There is no evidence that they were rival gangs," says Smith's attorney, Tom Roe. "The relationship was strained when Rosenhauer accused Robbie of stealing the sunglasses."
The strain quickly led to threats of violence.
During earlier trials, Rosenhauer testified that one of the young men said: "I'll kill you. I'll kill your friends. I'll take you out."
When things appeared to be heading for a fight, police arrived and the group of young people on the parking lot dispersed.
Rosenhauer was at Rally's on Williamson Road later that night, when Smith, Chris Clark and a teen-age boy drove up and once again started pushing for a fight, Hagan says. This time a security guard broke it up.
But a week later, Clark saw Rosenhauer sitting in a car on Williamson Road, threw a beer bottle at him, and tried to smack him in the face through a open window, Hagan says.
On Labor Day, Rosenhauer and some friends had settled in for a night of partying at Rosenhauer's parents' house, when he received a telephone call from Smith and his friends.
"They told him that they wanted to come out and squash the beef," Hagan says.
Rosenhauer agreed to talk. His parents were out of town and had left him and his sister in charge of the house.
When the group arrived at the Rosenhauers' Blue Ridge home, several car loads of uninvited guests accompanied them. Once inside, the young men talked things out. The feud seemed to have been resolved, Hagan says.
Some of the "guests" walked down to the basement, where the Rosenhauers had pet cockatoos in cages. Suddenly, they started toppling the bird cages to the floor. The birds were not injured or killed, Hagan says.
Mike Rosenhauer got on the phone and called the sheriff's office. The intruders decided to leave, Hagan says.
Once outside, one of the boys jumped back out of a car and started accusing one of Rosenhauer's friends of throwing something at the car.
When the teen-age boy threatened another young man, he was sprayed with Mace.
Before the group left, there was a gunshot from one of the cars.
The next night, around midnight, Mike Rosenhauer had gone to get something to eat, having left some of his friends at home to keep an eye on his parents' house.
Suddenly, the door flew open as if it had been kicked. In walked a group of young men, including the one who had been sprayed with Mace the night before.
"Where's the guy who Maced me?'' Hagan says the teen-ager demanded. "Where's Mike?''
When they got into their car to make the trip to the Rosenhauer house, Clark and the teen-ager yelled, "We're going to Botetourt to kick some a--,'' Hagan says.
Testimony at one of the trials indicated that others went to the Rosenhauer house in search of a party.
Once inside the Rosenhauer home, the group started searching bedrooms, looking for the other boys they wanted. They found Danny Gusler, who had been there the night before, asleep in a bedroom upstairs.
"Are you the guy who Maced me?'' the teen-ager demanded.
"I'm not a fighter," was Gusler's only answer as the much-bigger teen-ager straddled him in the bed and started beating him in the face.
Some witnesses said the beating went on for 10 minutes. Others say it was longer.
Gusler ended up with a broken arm, two broken ribs, a concussion and about $6,500 in uninsured medical bills he can't afford to pay.
The teen-ager's friends gathered around the bed to make sure no one could help Gusler. At one point, the teen-ager knocked Gusler off the bed. Others joined in to kick and punch him, Hagan says.
Meanwhile, some more of the group had broken through the door of the house's master bedroom in hopes of finding Rosenhauer. When he wasn't there, they decided to go on a stealing binge, Hagan says.
On their way out of the house, the group ripped down a chandelier, smashed a glass coffee table, ransacked the kitchen and knocked holes in the walls.
Hagan estimates the amount of items stolen at $3,000, which includes some family heirloom jewelry and a Weedeater. Damage to the house was estimated at $6,597.
Three of the defendants, including the one who beat Gusler, were tried as juveniles and will serve less than six months in jail. Hagan unsuccessfully tried to get the teen-ager who did the beating tried as an adult.
Of the five defendants who were older than 18, one was acquitted and four were convicted. Of those four, Clark has received the heaviest sentence. He was ordered to serve six years in prison by Botetourt County Circuit Judge George Honts III. Two others served four months in jail before their trial and were released following their conviction after receiving suspended two-year sentences. Smith will be sentenced Tuesday.
Sheriff Reed Kelly says his department is seeing more criminal cases growing out of the Botetourt County teen-agers getting involved in Williamson Road nightlife. He points to a case two years ago where a house in southern Botetourt County was ransacked after a teen-ager invited his friends from Williamson Road home.
"About half the larceny cases we have are Williamson Road thugs," he says. "They are a legend in their own mind."
Hagan says that trend is an outgrowth of the changing social habits of teen-agers in southern Botetourt County. "Lord Botetourt [High School] is now a full partner on Williamson Road," he says.
Roe, Smith's attorney and a former assistant commonwealth's attorney in Roanoke, prefers a piece of country wisdom: "Spare the rod, spoil the child."
"The biggest problem is there is no parental control," Roe says. "Parents need to know where there kids are at night.
"These kids often have no jobs and nothing to do. They have access to drugs and alcohol. They start searching for fun. Sometimes a fight breaks out. When they get liquored up, they want to act like John Wayne and fight everybody."
by CNB