DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711220355

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   76 lines

CONTRADICTORY TESTIMONY FREES WILSON STUDENT

Charges against a 17-year-old student stemming from the Oct. 14 brawl at Wilson High School were dismissed Friday after a Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge heard testimony from two witnesses.

This marks the second time charges have been dropped against students charged in connection with the school fight, which sent three pregnant students to the hospital and 22 others to the school nurse.

Charges against a 16-year-old were withdrawn earlier this month after witnesses refused to testify. The charges could be reinstated later if witnesses decided to come forward.

In addition, Portsmouth fire marshals have been unable to go forward with a case against two students accused of activating the fire alarm; witnesses refused to testify.

No others have been charged in connection with the Wilson incident, although four were suspended.

The teen-ager whose case was heard Friday had been charged with three counts of attempted robbery and one count of possession of a weapon on school grounds. He was accused of holding a knife up to three girls and demanding what they had in their pockets.

Judge Alotha Willis dismissed one charge in the beginning of the trial because one of the girls did not show up to testify.

She dismissed all of the charges after the two teen-agers who testified gave differing descriptions of the clothing their assailant was wearing that day, as well as the number of police cars that were in the vicinity.

Willis also expressed concern that so many people were at the school and yet ``you bring two witnesses.''

The first witness, a 17-year-old, testified that she was in the parking lot at school with her friends when the defendant came up behind her and put his hands in her pockets.

She said he became angry when she grabbed his hand away from her, and she showed the judge how he pointed a knife toward her chest and told her to give him what was in her pockets.

She testified that the melee was going on at the time and that there were a lot of police officers at the school.

She also said the defendant was wearing jeans, but no shirt, that day.

But the second witness, a 15-year-old girl, said the student who tried to rob them was wearing a white tank top. She also said that there was one police car there and that the other police officers had not shown up.

The teen-ager said the fight was building up, and they decided it would be best to leave the school. They returned shortly afterward with their parents.

She said she didn't know the defendant but had seen him around the hallways.

The defense attorney in Friday's hearing, Reginald M. Harding, said the judge's decision was ``totally correct.''

``The witnesses told completely two different things,'' he said.

Harding also had pointed to the fact that one of the girls testified that the teen-ager who tried to rob her was a little taller than her 5-foot-4 height.

The attorney had the defendant stand next to a deputy near his own height in the courtroom who said he was 6 feet tall.

The two girls were waiting in the hall with their mothers when they heard the case had been dismissed. One of the girls expressed fear that they now would be beaten up at school because they had testified.

The girl's mother approached the defendant's father and confronted him, telling him she wanted to make sure her daughter was not harmed. He tried to reassure her.

The other mother said she lived near Wilson and would go to the school every day if that is the only way she can be sure her child is safe.

``If anything happens to my child . . . Portsmouth schools are going to answer to me,'' she said.

She went back to the school with her daughter the day of the fight and found 30 police officers there, she said.

The mother said her daughter and others had been warned by their friends not to testify.

``I told her she did not have to open her mouth,'' she said. ``But she was tired of being pushed around.'' KEYWORDS: RIOT HEARING WILSON HIGH SCHOOL

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