"Responding Thursday to questions about motives, City Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman said some envy-based resentment against UVa students was one of 'a variety of different motives' present among the teenagers attacking the students in assaults near Rugby Road's Beta Bridge.

'There will be peer pressure. There will be anger and aggression' and a desire for fun and excitement present among the various motives of the teenage attackers, Chapman said. 'I think it was different from person to person.'

'Some hint of race-based motivation that might apply to a very small subset of those involved' did not apply to [Gordon Lathan] Fields, Chapman said. In Fields' case, 'there was not the slightest bit of evidence' that he was motivated by race.

Fields, a Charlottesville High School football star and the only adult charged (as he had passed his 18th birthday by four days), was handed a 30-day jail sentence for his part in the assaults and was ordered to perform 50 hours of community service, plus repay victims' medical expenses.

Primary motives

In deciding not to prosecute any of the eight juvenile defendants on hate-crime charges, Chapman said that even though three of the teenagers had told police that victims were selected because they appeared white, there was not proof of racial motivation beyond a reasonable doubt. The statements made to police about racial motivation were 'limited [and] extremely equivocal, universally qualified and general, not specific.'

Lacking evidence to prove racial intent by specific individuals, the prosecution will proceed with other charges against the eight other juvenile defendants who, like Fields, are black. A white female juvenile, one of two young whites who accompanied the black juveniles on at least one occasion, also may be charged." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, March 31, 2002)