"The Charlottesville teenagers charged with a string of recent assaults on college students near the University of Virginia will not face hate-crime charges, the city prosecutor said Thursday, after the only adult charged in the attacks landed a 30-day jail sentence for a reduced count of assault and battery by mob.

Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman said he does not have a basis for charging any of the nine black teenagers with hate crimes. He said statements some of the suspects gave police indicating the victims were selected because of race were made generally and without implicating any individuals.

'There may be some hint of race-based motivation in a small subset, but there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,' Chapman said.

The prosecutor said he attributes the five attacks on white and Asian students in January and September to a range of motivations, from peer pressure and youths getting their kicks to general 'anger and aggression,' resentment of UVa students.

One of those arrested in the attacks, 18-year-old, Gordon Lathan Fields, released a statement Thursday after his trial stating that he joined the assault on three UVA students Jan. 25, because he saw a female friend fighting with two men and thought, mistakenly, that she had been attacked. [See box, below]

'I tried to pull one of the students off of my friend and I got into a separate fight with him. What I should have done was to pull my friend away from the fight, both because she was in the wrong to begin with, and because she apparently kept fighting with the person that she had attacked, and she apparently hurt him seriously,' Fields wrote in a three-paragraph apology and explanation.

Chapman said Fields admitted punching one of the three men attacked between two and eight times, but described Fields' role in the attack as 'secondary.'

'Gordon did not know his friends were planning on attacking UVa students,' Fields' lawyer, J. Lloyd Snook III, said.

According to the plea agreement presented by Chapman and accepted by General District Judge Robert H. Downer Jr., Fields pleaded guilty to assault and battery by mob, a misdemeanor. Chapman reduced that charge from the original felony Fields faced, malicious wounding.

According to the terms of the agreement, Downer sentenced Fields to 30 days in jail, with an additional five months suspended, to be served beginning June 24, after school lets out. Fields also must pay restitution to the three victims of the Jan. 25 attack and perform 50 hours of community service or participate in the city's budding restorative justice program, a mediation-like project designed to heal the community and victims after a crime has occurred.

Fields also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against others accused in the beatings.

The Charlottesville High School senior declined to comment after Thursday's trial, except through Snook and his statement.

Like the other teenagers charged with felonies, Fields has been attending the city's alternative school since his arrest Feb. 1. Snook said Fields hopes to play football in college, but has not selected a school.

Robert Thompson, the principal at Charlottesville High School, said it is his understanding that the teenagers, including Fields, will be allowed to return to the high school if they are acquitted or convicted only of misdemeanors.

The other eight teenagers arrested, both males and females, are juveniles whose names have not been released by police or prosecutors. They are scheduled to appear in the city's Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on April 16, Snook said.

The arrests and initial statements by police indicating the suspects named race as a factor have drawn national attention to Charlottesville. They also have prompted some in the community to form a variety of ad hoc committees to discuss race relations and tensions between the city and UVa, to raise money for the suspects' legal defense (and to a lesser extent compensate the victims for medical expenses), and to brainstorm extracurricular opportunities the city can implement to keep young people out of trouble.

The leader of the group, the Rev. Alvin Edwards, a former mayor, said after Thursday's trial that race problems persist in Charlottesville.

'You'll always have racial tension when you have Caucasians who were involved who weren't charged,' Edwards said.

Police affidavits indicate that two white teenage girls were present in at least one of the attacks, one as a driver of the car used to leave the scene. They have not been charged." (Adrienne Schwisow, The Daily Progress, March 29, 2002)