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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 27, 1995                   TAG: 9509270077
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

3 ARRESTED IN SCHOOL LOT

Three males - one of them a student - tussled with a Roanoke police officer Monday afternoon in the parking lot of William Fleming High School and were arrested, police said.

The scuffle started about 3 p.m. after Officer M. Bocanegra, a school resource officer employed by the Roanoke Police Department, tried to place one of the young men under arrest for failing to turn down the volume of a car stereo.

The driver had complied and pulled into a line leading out of the parking lot, police said, but someone turned the music back up.

Bocanegra then approached the car and asked for identification, but the driver continued toward the gate, police said.

The officer asked a security guard at the gate to stop the car and ordered the driver out of the car. Bocanegra managed to get one handcuff on before the driver pushed him away, the report said.

The passenger tried to pull the driver free and cursed at the officer, the report said. The officer threatened him with pepper spray.

The driver then grabbed the officer by the throat and started choking him, according to the report. Bocanegra sprayed the driver, who let go of the officer's neck but continued to resist arrest, the report said.

A third person joined the ruckus, cursing at the officer and demanding the driver's release, police said. Other police officers arrived, and the three males were arrested.

Police charged Carlos Rashawn Carter, 19, of the 2400 block of Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, with assaulting a police officer, having a beeper on school property and playing loud music. Derik Randell Price, 23, also of the 2400 block of Massachusetts Avenue, was charged with impeding police and using abusive language. A 17-year-old - the only one of the three who was a William Fleming student - faces charges in juvenile court for impeding police and using abusive language.

Reports did not mention any attempt by the school security guard to intervene in the incident.

Principal Alyce Szathmary could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.

by CNB