Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 29, 1995 TAG: 9507310139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
A Wythe County General District Court judge Friday refused to grant a prosecution motion to take charges against nine defendants under advisement for a year and, if the men and women get in no further trouble, dismiss the charges.
Judge Daniel Bird also ordered other defendants, whose charges were heard by substitute judges while he was undergoing surgery, brought in along with the nine from Friday. The substitute judges had agreed to take the charges under advisement and dismiss them after a year.
Bird ordered everyone charged in the incident to appear before him Sept. 11.
Bird granted an earlier motion by Assistant Wythe County Commonwealth's Attorney Keith Blankenship to reduce all unlawful assembly charges from felonies to misdemeanors. The defendants would have had to be armed for a felony charge, and Blankenship said there was no evidence they were.
But Bird would not grant the subsequent motion to take all charges under advisement for a year.
"I haven't heard any evidence on it. I understand it was a very severe incident," he said. "Looks to me like that's not much punishment - any punishment. ... I'm just not going to accept that."
The fight outside the Wytheville Community Center involved as many as 125 people from Wytheville, Galax and North Carolina. Nearly 100 police officers from four law enforcement agencies spent three hours breaking it up.
Two state troopers were hurt. One sustained a broken finger, and the other had a back injury.
Some of the combatants were arrested at the scene. Other arrests were made near the town's emergency services office when friends of those arrested taunted or threatened officers.
Bird recommended that "the commonwealth's attorney's office do a little more investigation into what the problem is and how to resolve it."
He also issued an arrest warrant for Wayne Anthony Dickerson, 26, a former Galax resident now living in Winston-Salem, N.C., who failed to show up at Friday's hearing.
Dickerson is charged with unlawful assembly, as is his brother, Richard Fitzgerald Dickerson, 24, of Winston-Salem, and cousin, Lloyd Nolan Dickerson, 26, of Summerville, N.C.
Others charged with unlawful assembly Friday were Felisa Andrus, 32; Stephanie Louise Bryson, 20, and Ellis Hampden Jr., 26, all of Galax, and Phillip Odell Taylor, 31, of Wytheville.
Noland Taylor, 19, of Wytheville, is charged with disorderly conduct, and Kimberly Davis of Hillsville with reckless driving.
Several others, including a juvenile, were charged but were not part of Friday's hearing.
by CNB