Charlottesville Breaking News
Victims' legacy? UVA overhauls sexual assault policy
Susan Davis, associate VP for student affairs and Patricia Lampkin, UVA vice president and Chief of Student Affairs, smile during a press conference announcing UVA's overhauled sexual assault policy.Courteney Stuart
UVA rape victim Kathryn Russell and her mother, Susan Russell, a sexual assault victim advocate who launched www.uvavictimsofrape.comFile Photo/Courtesy Susan RussellYeardley Love, Liz Seccuro, Annie Hylton, and Kathryn Russell are high-profile names whose cases have given the University of Virginia a reputation for something other than academic excellence: the alleged mishandling of sexual assault and domestic violence cases. On Thursday, May 6, UVA announced it was making some changes, as Vice President and Chief of Student Affairs led a press conference announcing a complete policy overhaul which Lampkin hopes will become a "national model."
"We want people to know we care about this issue," said Lampkin.
In addition to placing more emphasis on assistance to victims, clarifying the definition of "effective consent" and "incapacitation," other proposed changes include:
•the addition of harassment, stalking, relationship violence, cyberstalking, recording or transmitting sexual images, and the knowing transmittal of an STD;
•changing the evidentiary standard from "clear and convincing evidence" (as with crimes) to "a preponderance of the evidence," (the lower threshold used in civil lawsuits);
•the elimination of mediation, in which victims would engage directly with their assailants;
•removal of time and jurisdictional limits, meaning that the university can adjudicate cases that occur off grounds and press cases well beyond the previous one-year limit to any time that the accused student is...
Bond denied: Man says dog-shooting followed drinking, hunting
Justin Riggs, left, and Brian Tichner are behind bars for their alleged roles in a January 15 dog shooting.Police photos
Mattie, a 10-month old Husky, was shot and killed in the front yard of a home in the Fray's Grant subdivision.File photo/Courtesy Yvonne ScarboroughOne of two convicted felons arrested for their alleged role in the January shooting of a family dog is claiming that it was all a mistake–- that they went drinking and hunting for deer with a vermin gun, when the shooter made a tragic target error. The claims, aired May 5 in Albemarle County General District Court, didn't win any immediate bail, and the assertion that they were deer-hunting with a .17– a rifle whose bullet typically weighs about half the weight of a .22– won only disbelief from the dog's owner.
"Why would you go hunting for deer with a .17, knowing you're not going to be able to bring something down?" asks Mattie's owner, Ed Scarborough. He says that when he and his wife took the dog's body to the veterinarian after the incident to retrieve the bullet, the vet told them it hadn't hit any major organs.
"She bled to death over some period of time," says Scarborough, noting that the allegedly errant hunters could have alerted the family of the accident– if that's what it was.
"If they'd come up to the door and said, 'We accidentally shot your dog,'" he says, "we could have possibly saved her. I don't believe a damn thing they're saying, other than the fact they shot the dog."
Twenty-six year old Justin Tyler Riggs was denied bond after his companion that night, 21-year-old Brian Tichner, testified agains...
How do you feel about Osama Bin Laden's death?
Joan Bullard: "I was overjoyed to the gills when I learned of it this morning from my computer."Hook staff
Todd Hayano: "I'm really happy. Anything that helps get our troops back home would be fantastic. I think it's a great thing for the United States to hopefully get out of foreign affairs."Hook staff
Debra Robinson: "My first reaction was relief, that it was over and that we can concentrate on things that are more important. Also, some degree of anxiety because I expect reaction."Hook staff
The week in review
Deadliest month for tornadoes: Violent storms across Virginia April 27-28 leave four dead in Washington County in southwest Virginia, and one dead in Southside's Halifax County, the AP reports. Two deaths in Pulaski April 16 make April the second worst since a September 30, 1959, tornado killed 12 people in the Ivy area.
Grimmest homicide scene: Three bodies,
apparently victims of gunshot wounds, are found dumped on a Greene
County road near Stanardsville around 3am May
3.
Worst homeless casualty: The Albemarle County Fair looks DOA this year because it doesn't have a site upon which to hold the up-until-now annual event. Brandon Shulleeta has the story in the Daily Progress.
Biggest computer heist: Albemarle Public Schools are missing 111 computers using primarily for Standards of Learning testing and kept in a secure, off-site facility, according to a police release. Alex C. Hunt, 34, of Stanardsville is a...
Greene slaying: One victim was attacker turned artist
Dustin Knightonfrom fineartamerica.com
by Dustin Knighton
by Dustin Knighton
by Dustin KnightonOne of the victims in the May 3 triple-slaying in Greene County was 25-year-old Charlottesville resident Dustin Tyler Knighton, a man who appears to be a self-taught artist who wrote frankly about life and art during a five-year prison stint.
"Sometimes I think to myself, I had to go to prison to find out that I could draw," Knighton wrote on his biography at fineartamerica.com.
The other victims were 26-year-old Brian Robert Lee Daniels of Charlottesville man and 26-year-old Lisa Hwang, no address given. On May 6, suspect Taybronne Altereik White taken into custody charged with various offenses stemming from an allegedly related home invasion.
City court records indicated that Knighton's criminal career began when the then 18-year-old was arrested for an alleged strong-arm robbery of the wallet and watch of a man named Adam Vineyard on June 14, 2003. Then, just five days later, Knighton allegedly stole a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass from Belen Martinez. He pleaded to reduced charges of grand larcency and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
But then came September 21, 2003, when Knighton allegedly participated in "assault and battery by mob." The highly-publicized battery on two UVA students near the corner of 17th Street and Gordon Avenue caused blo...
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