THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602010143
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
James Sherlock had no time to react when a man punched out his truck window with his fist, then began pounding him in the face.
``I heard the glass breaking, then I was punched,'' says Sherlock, a 16-year-old junior at Tallwood High School.
The vicious and apparently random attack took place while Sherlock was stopped at an Atlantic Avenue traffic light around 9 p.m. Jan. 10.
Doctors say that the youth should be able to use his eye, but for a time after the attack, that was questionable. Next-day surgery to reconstruct the eye and its tear duct now appear to have been successful.
The boy's vision is permanently impaired, though, and his mother, Nadine Sherlock, hopes the damage won't affect her son's plan to become a commercial artist.
Ironically, the Sherlocks - mother and son - moved to Virginia Beach last year, in part, to escape the random violence of southern New Jersey.
``Up there, they'll kill you for anything,'' James Sherlock said.
``Up there, they kill you for your sneakers,'' Nadine Sherlock added.
Earlier on the evening of the attack, James Sherlock had driven to the Oceanfront from his College Park home to pick up a sticker from a member of the car club he had just joined. He waited at the Exxon station at Laskin Road and Atlantic Avenue until well after the appointed time, then gave up and started home.
As Sherlock waited for the light to turn green so that he could make a right onto 17th Street, the passenger in a black Ford Ranger that was stopped on Sherlock's left jumped out and smashed Sherlock's window with his fist and proceeded to punch the boy repeatedly in the face. Then the man jumped back into the truck, and the driver drove off, turning right onto 17th Street, tires squealing.
Myke Hemphil, an engineer at the Dolphin Inn near the intersection, was working the night shift when he looked out a window to see the two trucks approaching the traffic light.
When they stopped for the red light, Hemphil watched as a man got out of the Ranger and busted out the window of Sherlock's truck with one punch, then punched Sherlock ``five or six times.''
``I only saw him from the back, but I think he was about 5-(foot)-8 or -9, medium build, a military haircut, blond to light brown hair,'' Hemphil recalled. He said that he thinks the Ranger was a 1989 model.
After the other truck departed, Sherlock ``leaned over, held my eye. I didn't think I was hurt, bleeding, so I turned right on 17th holding my eye,'' he said. ``I knew it hurt.''
After driving four blocks west, Sherlock stopped for a red light and saw a police officer in front of him in an unmarked car. He flashed his lights and beeped his horn, alerting the officer, who turned into a restaurant parking lot and called for an ambulance.
Officer T.C. McHenry investigated the incident and has turned it over to detectives of the city's Major Crimes Unit.
During the course of his investigation, McHenry learned from a witness that the truck the attacker was riding in had a citizens band antenna on its top and may have had a Virginia license plate.
McHenry said that because of the serious damage to Sherlock's eye, the assailant, if found, could be charged with malicious assault.
It all happened so fast - about 10 seconds, Sherlock estimates - that he didn't get a good look at his assailant, but he is certain that it was no one he knew.
``He was 19, maybe, had a military haircut, maybe a ponytail, the bottom shaved,'' Sherlock recalled. ``I've never seen them before, never had trouble there before.''
Sherlock is now so fearful that he keeps a tire iron in his truck for defense.
Nadine Sherlock, a 38-year-old graduate student at Norfolk State University and an Air Force retiree, wants her son's attacker arrested and convicted and has offered a $500 reward for information.
``These thugs didn't just do this and not mention it,'' she said. ``Somebody, someone knows.''
James Sherlock says he just wants ``to know, why?'' MEMO: Anyone with information about the assault should call Crime Solvers at
427-0000.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by NANCY LEWIS
Nadine Sherlock, a 38-year-old graduate student at Norfolk State
University and an Air Force retiree, wants her son James's attacker
arrested and convicted and has offered a $500 reward for
information.
KEYWORDS: ASSAULT by CNB