More Osbourn students charged with felonies
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By Elisa Glushefski
Published: April 10, 2008
Six more Osbourn High School students have been charged in connection with several incidents when items were thrown onto a stretch of Prince William Parkway as a prank.
Prince William County police said Wednesday that four 17-year-old and two 16-year-old boys were charged with a total of 43 misdemeanors and felonies, nearly two weeks after three 18-year-old Osbourn students were arrested on similar charges.
Debris began to turn up on Prince William Parkway between Nokesville and Lucasville roads last year, authorities said.
A recent police investigation revealed that a group of teens was allegedly throwing items that included lawn chairs and children's toys into the road to watch cars swerve and to cause accidents.
In one incident, two vehicles crashed because of a tree limb, a tire and a boulder in the roadway that police
believe the teens are
responsible for putting there.
Two people in one of the vehicles were injured, police said, and the vehicles were heavily damaged.
The 17-year-olds, one from Warrenton and others from Manassas, are facing charges of trespassing, littering on a highway and felony destruction of property, said Officer Erika Hernandez, police spokeswoman.
The two 16-year-olds, both from Manassas, were each charged with trespassing and littering on a highway, she said.
Police said the boys, whose names were not released because they are minors, will have a hearing in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
The first arrests in the case were made March 21 when an officer traveling on the parkway reported debris in the roadway.
While that officer stopped to remove the debris, other officers went to the nearby neighborhood and arrested three 18-year-olds, police said.
One of those three is now facing additional charges related to the case, Hernandez said.
Michael D. Fuller, 18, of 9609 Garden St. in Manassas, was initially charged with four counts of felony destruction of property, three counts of trespassing and four counts of littering on a highway, police said.
New charges of trespassing, littering on a highway and felony destruction of property were placed against him on Monday for an incident on happened Jan. 15, Hernandez said.
Dusty Harrelson, 18, of 10373 Butternut Circle in Manassas, was charged with two counts of felony destruction, two counts of trespassing and two counts of littering on a highway; and Eric Regis, 18, of 8576 Adamson St. in Manassas, was charged with trespassing, littering on a highway and two counts of felony destruction of property following the March 21 incident, police said.
All three are scheduled to appear in court May 30.
Staff writer Elisa Glushefski can be reached at 703-878-8062 or .
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( wbresident ) on April 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I hope at least one of these idiots is 18. It’s all laughs in jail!
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Posted by ( 808 ) on April 10, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Point well taken, but my point is someone needs to get the word out about accountability - parents probably need as much education as the kids. Get the PTA involved, consarnit. No parent in their right mind would support their progeny doing what these kids allegedly did, but I’m sure they all found out the hard way what their offspring were up to: Police showing up at the house or a phone call from the station relaying the arrests. Or maybe they saw their kid’s mug shots on the evening news.
It might be worth noting that the only things I ever learned at an assembly was that frostbite will take your fingers and toes, and that alcohol consumption might make you feel warm, but that disparity in perception will expose you to hypothermia more easily than someone who is more acutely aware of the temperature.
Ah, public schooling.
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Posted by ( salala ) on April 10, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The school should hold an assembly? What about the parents? Where is their responsibility in all this? What kind of sons are they raising? How did it get to be the school’s responsibility for what kids do outside of school time? The way I see it, that’s the problem. Not only are we supposed to educate them, we’re supposed to raise them too! Get a grip! Stand up and raise your children and while you are at it, give ‘em a dictionary and make ‘em look up the word “accountability”!
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Posted by ( 808 ) on April 10, 2008 at 10:26 am
Let me begin by reinforcing the notion I do believe into our Constitutionally guaranteed innocent before proven guilty right. That being said, these kids are of the highest order of idiot, putting random drivers’ lives in danger for a cheap thrill.
I do enjoy how the media calls putting debris in the road as a “prank”, possibly because no one is prescient enough call it what it is: intent to cause serious harm. Every commuter sees at least some sizeable object on the local roads on a regular basis (my current favorite was an entire queen box spring in the middle of 95N), and the traffic, congestion and aggressive drivers make driving stressful enough without Beavis, Butthead and Co. proving yet again that young men with nothing better to do are inevitably going to destroy something.
They’re young, and should grow out of the typical “huh huh, let’s break stuff” phase, but the schools should at least call an assembly and let the young ‘uns know that tree limbs/rocks/whatever in the road might seem funny, but being sentenced for felony detruction might be a small burden on your life. As ever, it’s all we can do to fight ignorance before copycat road obstruction becomes a new fad for the chronically stupid.
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