"It is hard to say what was more disturbing to the citizens of this bucolic college town when a group of teenagers was arrested in a series of sometimes-brutal assaults on students at the University of Virginia.

It was bad enough that the accused were 10 local high school students who police believe beat up college students on six occasions just for the thrill of it.

But when a police investigator announced that three of the suspects said they had chosen targets because they looked different, residents reeled, contemplating how run-of-the-mill, town-and-gown friction could turn so ugly. The suspects are black, and the victims are white or Asian.

Once the race issue was out in the open, the police chief hurried to say that the investigation is continuing, that more students could be charged as accessories and that it is premature to assign motive.

But the attacks already have aroused passion throughout the city, known for its tolerance, liberalism and the dominance of the university founded by Thomas Jefferson. With four out of 10 city residents attending the school, and many more working there, the arrests of black teenagers charged with assaulting mostly white college students has generated an intense debate over racial issues and the definition of hate crimes.

A white-rights group called European-American Unity and Rights Organization, headed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, is publicizing the case nationwide and demanding that the black teenagers be prosecuted for hate crimes against whites.

With the group threatening to demonstrate on the steps of City Hall, officials are striving to keep the incident a local matter. They play down calls to treat it as a hate crime. They say the people who have called or written e-mails criticizing the city's handling of the case often used vulgar language and do not understand the law or the nature of what happened, much less the city's torn emotions.

'Race and everything else aside, these are our kids, on both sides, victims and suspects,' said Police Chief Timothy J. Longo Sr., who has received vituperative letters about the case challenging everything from his manhood to his moral courage. 'We need to talk about why this happened and what we can do as a community to make sure it doesn't happen again.'

Until a police investigator mentioned that race may have been a factor, there was no hint of anything more than a rash of simple assaults. The first incident was in September, but most of the attacks occurred in December and January, police say. The assaults were centered on Rugby Road, a lane abutting campus and home to many sororities and fraternities. The victims were male and female.

In all, 10 people were injured in the six incidents that occurred between early evening and late at night, police say. The assault victims told police they had been kicked and punched by a group of at least three African American youths. A robbery occurred in at least one instance. Police said the victims suffered a range of injuries; several were as minor as scrapes on the face, but one suffered a concussion and another had broken cheekbones that necessitated surgery.

Nine of the 10 high school students arrested early this month are minors. One, however, turned 18 just days before the latest attack and is being prosecuted as an adult. The charges include misdemeanor assault and felony assault by mob.

Under Virginia law, when race is a motivating factor for some misdemeanors, charges can be upgraded to felonies with a punishment of five years in prison. Several of the suspects already are charged with felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The European-American Unity and Rights Organization contends that hate-crime prosecutions are applied unfairly, used only when the victim is a minority. 'It's one-sided,' said Vincent Breeding, national director of the group. 'There are no whites who are victims whose assailants are being prosecuted. If we're going to have a tolerance of diversity in society, it can't be a one-way street.'

Ron Doggett, head of the Virginia chapter of the group, said he has asked almost 10,000 people on his nationwide mailing list to pressure city officials to invoke the hate-crime provision. He also asked the U.S. Justice Department to intervene, but FBI spokesman Lawrence Barry said agents are convinced police are investigating appropriately.

Alvin Edwards, a former Charlottesville mayor and pastor who has three of the student suspects in his congregation at Mount Zion Baptist Church, believes class, not race, lies at the root of the assaults. He said many local teenagers, particularly African Americans, resent the university because they consider it largely inaccessible to them. He also doubts race was involved because two students in the clique, who were questioned and released without charges, are white girls.

'How can it be an attack on whites when whites are involved?' he asked.

At Charlottesville High, where eight of the 10 suspects attend school, students have trouble believing their lifelong friends may be racists. The student body of 1,200 is 51 percent white and 48 percent black. The city itself is 70 percent white, 22 percent black and 5 percent Asian.

'We know them,' said Thomas Stratton, 17, a senior who is black. 'We know they don't hate white people.'

Many students decry the attacks but say their friendships with the suspects will not be eroded. When one of the suspects showed up at a track meet after his release from jail, his friends hugged him in welcome.

'We feel betrayed,' said Emily McMullen, 17, a white senior. 'They misrepresented us and themselves. What they allegedly did is not characteristic of those people.'

The university's executive vice president, Leonard Sandbridge, said the students who were assaulted have all been offered counseling. None has dropped out of school.

'We want to know why this occurred for the sole purpose of addressing anything that might have been the catalyst that caused these crimes to occur,' he said.

Mayor Blake Caravati said the city is approaching the incidents as 'a teachable moment.'

'Sure, they did wrong, but they're our young men and women who are going to live in the community a long time,' Caravati said. 'We need to be supportive of them. This is an opportunity to talk about the situation, use it to learn and change our community in a positive way.'" (Carol Morello, The Washington Post, February 27, 2002)