ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: SCOTT BOWLES THE WASHINGTON POST
DOROTHY NEWTON fired five times with her revolver, police say, hitting two muggers.
There is no other smell quite like the acrid, scorched scent that follows the explosion of gunpowder from inside the barrel of a gun. Dorothy Newton knows that smell.
She learned it on June 15, 1994, moments after someone put a pistol to her neck and pulled the trigger.
That blast nearly killed Newton, who was robbed and shot as she and her godson were walking to her Richmond apartment. Newton, 41, recovered fully; her 23-year-old godson, Melvin Maryland, didn't. He was shot in the neck and was left paralyzed from the neck down.
Another young robber leveled a pistol in her face last month. "I could taste the gunpowder," Newton said. "I think I had a flashback."
Except this time, Newton pulled her own handgun. She fired five times with the .38-caliber revolver, police said, spraying bullets at four assailants who had surrounded her. Two were shot; two escaped.
Even though the gun belonged to a friend of Newton's, and she had no legal right to carry it, a Richmond grand jury declined to bring charges against her June10.
Two of her alleged assailants, a 15-year-old youth and 18-year-old James E. David, have been charged with two counts of robbery each after spending more than a week recuperating in the hospital. The other two have not been caught.
Since then, Newton has become something of a folk hero in the tough neighborhoods of the southern section of this city. Some have dubbed her "Bernice Goetz," a play on the name of New York subway rider Bernhard Goetz, who shot four young men on a train in 1984.
"Thank God someone finally stood up to the hoodlums around here," said Lamont Peterson, 51, a neighbor of Newton's. "They think they run the city. Now I'm not saying that violence is a good answer to things. But too bad she didn't kill them both."
The Richmond Times-Dispatch touted her in a recent editorial as a shining argument against the city's "gun control zealots."
"The thought of cocky young predators scurrying like scalded dogs is one decent people find immensely satisfying," the editorial said.
It's the kind of attention that Newton said she never expected - and wants no part of.
"People are coming up to me and saying, `Dot, you're a hero,' but I don't look at it that way," Newton said. "I nearly died the first time someone put a gun to my head. I didn't want to give somebody another chance. And I guess, deep in my heart, I felt that somewhere along the line, this has got to stop. Those boys have got to be taught a lesson."
Wednesday, for the first time, she faced one of the teen-agers accused of accosting her. In nervous testimony in Richmond-Manchester District Court, Newton said David raised a pistol to her face and ordered her to "shut up and give up my money." She stood 10 feet from David but looked at him only once, when prosecutors asked her to identify her attacker.
As District Judge Lewis Booker ordered that David stand trial on the charges, Newton sat alone in the hallway outside the courtroom, composing herself.
"I'll tell you the honest truth," Newton said. "I thought that protecting myself would make me less scared to walk the streets. It hasn't. I'm scared to death."
Despite the support from neighbors, Newton has become a near recluse in Richmond. She has moved into her boyfriend's home and goes to her apartment only to retrieve the mail. She refuses to allow the media to take her picture, for fear of retaliation.
The feeling, she said, is familiar.
"This is just how it felt two years ago," Newton said. "Even though I didn't get shot this time, I still don't feel comfortable going outside."
Newton said she thought she had overcome the fear last year, having recovered physically and emotionally from her wounds in the first attack.
Nothing had prepared her for that assault. She and her godson were walking to her apartment when two young men approached them. They were robbed of all their money and jewelry, but Newton said she thought they would be left unharmed.
The gunshot that followed, she said, seemed almost an afterthought.
"He just turned and, pop!'' Newton said. "Like it was nothing to him to take a life."
He nearly took two. But Newton recovered, moved from her apartment to south Richmond and "began rebuilding my life."
Although her assailants were not caught, Newton said she slowly began returning to her normal routine. Her fear of strangers subsided. She began to take walks around the complex at night, even alone.
Going out alone has become no small feat for many women in Richmond, a mid-size city plagued by big-city crime. A task force of FBI agents and Richmond police officers launched Operation Golden Years this month, an investigation of 19 unsolved slayings of elderly women in Richmond since 1990.
Investigators said it does not appear that all of the killings are related, but fear of a serial killer resonates in the city. Sales of deadbolt locks have surged, and local contractors have installed peepholes free.
Some women have shuttered themselves in their homes, police say, and some have resorted to carrying weapons.
Newton was carrying one May 30, but she said she had the revolver only because she meant to deliver it to the owner, whom she would not identify.
She and a niece, Doris Matthews, 28, were taking a walk in the parking lot of Newton's sprawling apartment complex about 9:15 p.m., on the first rain-free night of the week, when two teen-agers, singing, walked toward them.
One of them pulled a pistol, she said, and demanded her purse. Newton said she handed over her large purse, which was drawn tightly shut with a drawstring.
When the youths couldn't open the bag, they told Newton to remove the money and for the two women to hand over all their jewelry. Newton reached into her bag and handed them a cigarette case with $20 in it. Newton and Matthews also handed over their necklaces and rings.
Two more youths, friends of the teen-agers, walked up to the group, police said. The teen-agers demanded more money and valuables.
Newton told the robbers she might have more money in her purse. As one of the youths held the bag open, she reached to the bottom and pulled the revolver, tucking it into the sleeve of her baggy sweat shirt.
When one of the robbers moved toward her, Newton said, she raised the gun.
"I said, `Take this!' and shot him," she said. "I didn't care what happened. I didn't want to shoot them; but more than that, I didn't want anything to happen to my niece."
All four fled, but police tracked down the two injured teen-agers and took them to the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals. The identity of the 15-year-old has not been released because he is a juvenile.
The incident sparked high-fives and laughter among residents in some of Richmond's beleaguered communities, and even police officers were shaking their heads at the turn of events.
"She was just protecting herself," said Richmond police spokesman Karl Holzbach. "We don't encourage people doing that, in case they miss. But the law says you have a right to defend yourself."
Not everyone, however, sees the incident as a triumph of victims' rights.
"I know things have gotten out of control with the criminals and the drugs and all," said Victoria Wells, 40, a resident of the complex where Newton has her apartment. "But I don't want to look at my next-door neighbor and wonder if she's got a gun in her purse. More people are just going to get hurt."
She concedes, however, that she is in the minority among residents.
"People are fed up," she said. "They see what she did and say maybe we should all do that. I don't know what the answer is."
Newton doesn't pretend to have it.
"I'm happy those boys survived," she said. "I never wanted to kill anybody. I never wanted to shoot anybody. I'm just tired of being afraid."
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