ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605080067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
After hitting a Roanoke police officer in the head with a chair during a fight at William Fleming High School, a 16-year-old student turned to a crowd of spectators in the cafeteria and gave a thumbs-up sign, witnesses testified Tuesday.
Police and security guards scrambled to arrest the boy and a second student involved in the fracas, then whisked them away in patrol cars to avoid what a prosecutor called a potentially riotous situation.
"It was getting out of control quickly," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Bowers said.
After hearing that account in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Judge John Ferguson convicted both teens on charges of assault and disrupting school. He ordered them held without bond until they are sentenced next month.
M.A. Rayl, a resource officer assigned to work at the school, suffered minor cuts and bruises during the Feb. 29 incident.
Bowers gave the following account:
About 12:30 p.m., the two students - who are not being named because of their ages - got into an argument over a girl. Rayl and several other school officials were breaking up the dispute when one of the students, who was 17 at the time, began to curse at them.
As Rayl approached the boy, the 17-year-old took off his sweat shirt and slung it to the floor, then grabbed a chair as if he were going to throw it. When the youth flung the chair to the floor, Rayl approached again, and the boy shoved him into a table and chairs.
At that point, the 16-year-old grabbed a plastic chair and slung it, striking Rayl in the back of the head and knocking him to the floor. The boy then turned to a crowd of about 400 students - many of them standing on chairs to get a better view of the fight - and held both thumbs up in the air.
As backup police officers arrived, the two boys were arrested and removed from the campus before more students could get involved. "There were people taking both sides," Bowers said.
Both students, who have been expelled from William Fleming, maintained that they accidentally assaulted Rayl as he attempted to break up the fight.
The 16-year-old contested testimony from school administrators that he held his thumbs up after hitting Rayl with the chair, according to his attorney, assistant public defender Steve Milani.
Allen Wilson, a Roanoke attorney who represented the other teen, acknowledged that some students seemed to be taking sides but others believed school officials overreacted in breaking up the fight.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB