THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260433
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
The last of four former Norfolk State University students to be sentenced for a 1994 murder in a dormitory room testified Wednesday that weeks before the slaying he sought help from NSU officials about campus violence, but to no avail.
``I went to'' campus officials about violence between groups of students, said Derrick Washington, who was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison for acting as a lookout in the attack in the early hours of Jan. 18, 1994, at NSU's Samuel F. Scott Hall. The attack left Gerard Edwards dead and his roommate wounded.
A dorm official ignored him when he tried to explain the problem, Washington testified. Dorm security guards ``told me, `You're a chicken - stand up for yourself, be a man,' '' he said.
``I told teachers - it was like nobody paid me any mind,'' he continued under the questioning of Circuit Judge John C. Morrison Jr. ``Everybody had a way of brushing it off. I went to the campus police - they just stood and watched (fights). The most they ever did was spray Mace to break up fights.''
For months, the tales of gang rivalries that led to tragedy at NSU have filtered out in testimony. In March, a former Scott Hall resident adviser testified that conditions in and near the dorm were so dangerous that he kept a loaded handgun for protection during his rounds.
University officials and some students have said that problems at the dorm, and on campus, have eased in the past two years.
``What the young man said was inaccurate,'' Dr. James Satterfield, vice president of student affairs, said Wednesday. ``Everybody he would have spoken to would have helped. . . . We always take everything very seriously - we try to protect our students at all times. Any time anyone comes to an administrator or campus police and makes a complaint, no one brushes it off. We check into it.
``What I think we have here is a person faced with a sentence who will say anything in his favor to get him off,'' Satterfield said. ``It's very unfortunate, but that's how I see it. He certainly did not come to me or any university official. . . . My office and other administrators' has an open-door policy.''
At the time of the murder, testimony has indicated, Scott Hall was a dorm rife with tension. Several city-based groups existed - from New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Detroit - living within a few doors of one another. Fights were common. Group members hung together for friendship, and safety.
Edwards was shot up to 10 times in his room, a victim of gang rivalry. His downfall was befriending a group of Washington-area students called the D.C. Boys.
Derrick Washington and his co-defendants were all members of a group of New Yorkers called the 718 Crew. A fifth student, Anthony Britton, is still being sought.
On Wednesday, Morrison was initially incredulous. ``I have difficulty believing that at a state university you can't get someone to respond to such problems. . . . Why didn't you go the president, to top administrators?''
Washington, pleading for leniency, answered: ``You can't get to them. They're too good for you.'' He added that when he went to the administration building, he was told that he needed an appointment to talk to officials or that they were not in. He never mentioned names.
Robert Hagans, Washington's attorney, said that part of the problem was that NSU's ``open-door policy (of admissions) brings in some bad elements.'' Morrison responded, ``If this was reported and nothing was done, something was amiss at Norfolk State.''
But the argument was not enough to convince the judge to set Washington free. ``I must look at punishment, deterrence, retribution,'' Morrison told Washington, of Long Island, N.Y. Hagans pleaded for a lenient sentence based on his client's testimony against his co-defendants. But Morrison wouldn't buy it.
So ended the trials this year of four young men, all with clean records and of good families, whose murder of a fellow student was fueled by group loyalty and peer pressure that veered out of control.
James Powers, the mastermind, was convicted of first-degree murder, malicious wounding, conspiracy and two firearms counts. He was sentenced to 55 years.
Shamont Burrell, the trigger man, was found guilty of the same charges and sentenced to 68 years. Christopher Skinner and Washington made plea agreements: Skinner was sentenced to 11 years for conspiracy and accessory after the fact.
Washington was sent to NSU against his will, testified his mother, Betty Washington. ``But he was 18 years old and I made him come. I thought it would be good for him to go to an all-black university. We were from New York, with the highest crime rate in the nation. . . . Who could think that something like this could happen in Norfolk?''
So in fall 1993, Washington came to Norfolk. He wanted to be a lawyer, he testified. He was far from home and lonely. He met and befriended a student from New York nicknamed Justice.
Through Justice, he met other New Yorkers. ``We could relate to different things, so we started hanging together,'' he said. ``It was no gang. . . . We were just friends.''
But soon, Washington saw the downside of life in Scott Hall. A friend got into a fight with a D.C. student over a girl. ``One week later, there was another fist fight - a D.C. kid threw a bottle at a New Yorker,'' he said. That night, some of the New Yorkers ordered pizza. When they went to get it, a D.C. Crew member nicknamed Montana ``chased us down with a gun.''
``One-half of the D.C. boys were grown men,'' Washington said. ``They weren't students. They sold drugs at the 7-Eleven on the corner'' of Park and Brambleton avenues, he said.
By now, Washington was trying to get out of school, he said. ``I called my mom at all hours of the night. I was calling her a month before it happened. . told her. `I want to go home.' ''
On the witness stand, Betty Washington was in tears. ``I would not let him come home,'' she testified. ``I thought he was homesick. I thought these things were farfetched. . . . Who ever heard of these things happening in a state university?''
By now, the New Yorkers and D.C. students went everywhere in groups for protection, Washington said. The night before the shooting, the two groups fought at a university-sponsored party at a Newport News roller-skating rink. Edwards and Burrell, former roommates, came to blows. After the fight, the New Yorkers were fed up with their treatment, Washington said. Edwards, who lived three doors away from Powers, was targeted.
That night, the five suspects met in Powers' room. They ordered a pizza and discussed the fight. Washington returned to his room, then got a call at 2 a.m. from Britton. ``He said, `Derrick, come up to my room.' That was all he said.''
Out of loyalty, he went. ``I thought they was just gonna scare him, beat him up or something,'' Washington remembered. ``The next thing I know, they pulled out two guns from under the bed.'' Britton pulled out a .38-caliber revolver, Burrell a Tec-9 semiautomatic. They told him to be a lookout, he said. One of the two waved the gun as he spoke.
``I was scared,'' Washington said. ``It happened so fast. I was scared he
was gonna shoot me if I said no.'' But now there were threats. Powers called his home. Cars parked for long
periods outside his house. Two weeks before Wednesday's hearing, someone shot
at him, he said. The guy who shot at him said, ``I'm gonna get you, snitch.''
``There was only one thing he could mean,'' Washington said.
All this - the threats, the testimony, the cooperation - was enough to
lessen his sentence, Morrison said. But it was not enough to keep him out of
prison.
Washington took the sentence standing up. He didn't move, didn't cry out.
He looked back at his mother as he was being led off.
Betty Washington stood and begged the judge, ``Can I hug my son, your
honor? Can I please hug Derrick one last time?''
But it was against court policy. Derrick Washington was led off. His mother
sat down, crying.
KEYWORDS: SENTENCING
by CNB