Posted on 09/25/2007 2:39:51 PM PDT by Jack Black
Police investigating videotaped attack on Ocean View teen
UPDATE: Five youths will be charged with misdemeanor mob assault
Edited video of the attack. NORFOLK
In the video, the 13-year-old boy struggled to stay on his feet as several youths punched and pushed him from all sides. When he finally went down, the blows didn’t cease; he tried to protect his face and head with his hands. As he pleaded for them to stop, he was kicked in the face.
After the weekend beating in Ocean View, which lasted less than 40 seconds, the boy struggled to his feet, his face bloody.
The youth, Damin O’Rourke, who only recently moved to Norfolk’s West Ocean View from North Carolina, was left with bruises and scrapes. Police have identified several assailants – juveniles who they said could face misdemeanor assault charges.
Once again, the city is facing questions related to an assault involving several young assailants.
Damin is white; his assailants are black. Still, police said in a news release: “The assault does not appear to be racially motivated according to information gathered by investigators that we are unable to release.” The city’s Gang Squad was investigating, said Officer Chris Amos, police spokesman.
In July, a group attacked three men in East Ocean View; one died. Police charged seven people, ages 15 to 29, in that case. Police do not think the two attacks are part of a larger pattern, Amos said.
The incident comes on the heels of a march that drew thousands to Jena, La., to protest the treatment of several black youths who were charged with serious crimes in connection with an assault on a white youth. While the circumstances were very different – protesters in Jena said the young defendants were being treated too harshly – the national news media, and some international news outlets, nonetheless took an interest in the Norfolk case.
Billy Cook, a city School Board member who is black, said in an e-mail that community leaders, especially black leaders, should speak out against violence. He said in an interview that black youths are over represented in discipline reports he sees from the schools.
“We need to address the issue directly, deliberately and intentionally, and say 'Enough is enough,’” he said.
Damin, a seventh-grader at Northside Middle School, spoke about the beating Monday at his family’s home on Hickory Street. He said it started without provocation or warning around 5 p.m. Saturday at Marlow and Orange avenues.
He said several people attacked him. Most were strangers, he said, although one went to Northside Middle School.
The attack was videotaped by a youth from the neighborhood who uses a camera to capture images of skateboarding, said Damin, who refused to identify the boy. He said the youth gave his family a copy of what he recorded; they, in turn, released it to news outlets.
WVEC reported that the youth with the camera had been threatened at school for taping the assault.
Police acknowledged the Gang Squad was investigating but did not otherwise reveal any theories about what may have been the motive for the assault.
Had five white youths beaten a black it would have been a gang attack and a felony.
I agree. And while that is certainly understandable, it is a shame. We should not be divided like this.
Whatever route the citizens take, it is long past time to light a fire. If the flames start with their local law enforcement, so be it. Start low, and watch the flames go higher. I am of course, not advocating criminal action.
But, of course, if it were 5 whites against one black, it would be nothing but a racial attack.
RE #10, it’s okay to commit race crimes against whites and it’s done because we’re the only group that will put up with this crap. When others push whites keep backing up.
Absolutely wrong, this is racial.
BTW, I truly believe the fire is a full blown blaze at this point.
as the hatred of America by most of the world??
hatred is a strange (and contagious) disease, and ...
Interesting link. It says it is playing and the little bar is moving across the bottom of the screen but it stays black and silent.
No conscience, no soul.
Where I live the blacks come into my town from the next town just to fight. Its so bad by the movies we have a trailer set up by the cops just for the fighters & shoplifters. I don't bother to go there anymore.
Of course there is a subliminal message in there, if one can find it.
Let us ask ourselves..."is it becuse we are more civilized than them, or because we are forced into retreating because of the courts giving blacks MORE civil power than whites? HUH?
If he was kicked with a shod foot...the assailant can be charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
My Hero!
I vote for choice #2
Laws today are written by lawyers to support the institution of lawyers. To provide for an endless feeding trough to set government against citizen in order to fuel what will become CWII.
Maxwell Smart has nothing to do with it...
As for the part about lawyers, I will say you are correct. Over 90 percent of the elected, at the federal level are lawyers. At the courts or judicial level, all are lawyers, and most are not elected. The judges are for the most part, selected.
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