ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996                 TAG: 9606060079
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK 

FLEMING STUDENTS RELEASED FROM CUSTODY

Two high school students involved in a cafeteria fight in which a Roanoke police officer was struck in the head with a chair were released from detention this week.

At separate sentencing hearings in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, the two William Fleming High School students were sentenced to the time they already had served. Both boys, 16 and 17, had been held in the Coyner Springs Juvenile Detention Center since they were convicted May 7 of assault and disrupting school.

Judge John Ferguson also ordered the 16-year-old to enroll in an anger-control program and write letters of apology to the school, the police officer and a security guard involved in breaking up the fight. Both students were ordered to pay the officer's medical bills.

Earlier testimony has shown that the two students began to argue about a girl in the cafeteria on Feb. 29. When M.A. Rayl, a police resource officer, tried to break up the fight, he was struck in the head with a chair and knocked to the floor. Rayl was not seriously injured.

Allen Wilson, a Roanoke attorney who represented the 17-year-old, said the two students did not intend to hurt Rayl as he stepped into the fray.

Both students were suspended for the rest of the year, and will have to petition the school superintendent to return to William Fleming next year.

Steve Milani, an assistant public defender who represented the younger defendant, said the 16-year-old "grew up a whole lot during his 30 days in detention."

"If he had to do it all over again, he would have just walked away from it."

LENGTH: Short :   38 lines