"A community group formed in response to a series of assaults and robberies near the University of Virginia and dedicated to discussing problems faced by Charlottesville teenagers suggested Sunday that a youth-oriented coffee shop or roller-skating night could help keep city teens busy and out of trouble.

The ideas came at what has become a weekly evening gathering in Mt. Zion Baptist Church to brainstorm solutions to concerns the assaults have raised — among them, race relations and tension between city teens and University of Virginia students.

Nine black city teenagers were arrested in February and charged in five attacks on UVa and Piedmont Virginia Community College students. Police have said three of the suspects said they chose victims who looked white.

The Rev. Alvin Edwards, pastor at Mt. Zion and organizer of the group of three community committees, said after Sunday’s meeting that he thinks the main problem to be addressed in light of the assaults is the lack of teenage activities.

“There’s nothing really to do,” Edwards said.

He also suggested that the committees look at providing parental training to cope with what he called some teenagers’ “disrespect.”

“Some parents need some parental training and they need help,” Edwards said.

In addition to the coffee shop and skate-night ideas, Robert Jordan, a representative of the youth committee, said students have discussed forming a diversity council to attend School Board and City Council meetings.

A representative of the youth defense and victim compensation committee — a name recently expanded to include attention to the victims after some criticism that the group focused mainly on the suspects — announced that it has raised about $1,450. Seventy percent will go to the suspects’ defense and 30 percent will be given to the victims, the committee’s representative said.

Also addressing the crowd of about 100 was Robert [Stewart], a retired 20-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police in Washington, former director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and friend of Timothy J. Longo, Charlottesville’s police chief. Longo said [Stewart] will be working with the city and UVa police sometime in the future to discuss issues like racial profiling.

[Stewart], who now lives in Florida, suggested the community groups bring in a third party mediator to help implement changes in response to the attacks. He also urged UVa to play an active role in the larger community.

Ida Lee Wootten, a spokeswoman for UVa, said the university has more than 50 programs to reach the city’s black teenagers, ranging from admissions help to basketball ticket giveaways.

[Stewart] also touched on the question of hate crimes, cautioning that “cross cultural crime” and “hate crime” are not the same.

Dave Chapman, the city commonwealth’s attorney, has not said if any of the suspects will face hate-crime charges or if any of the juveniles will be tried as adults.

The one adult arrested in the attacks is scheduled to appear March 28 in Charlottesville General District Court on a malicious wounding charge. The juveniles are scheduled to appear in Charlottesville’s juvenile court on April 14.

All of the suspects are free pending their trials." (Adrienne Schwisow, The Daily Progress, March 18, 2002)