Lefthome
01-27-2005, 06:02 PM
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Tampa, Florida police arrest five people accused of shouting racial slurs and attacking a couple who complained about a loud party at an apartment.
http://img102.exs.cx/img102/1751/woman4cm.jpghttp://img102.exs.cx/img102/782/attack0oo.jpg
TAMPA - It was 2 a.m. Wednesday, and at least five people were pounding at the front door of Ayesha Colclough's South Tampa apartment, shouting racial slurs and vowing to get her.
"Please, please, please, send someone to 4205 S Manhattan," pleaded the terrified woman, according to a 911 tape. "I am sitting in my apartment and they're throwing stuff at the glass window. . . . They're all white. One of them is bald, and he has neo-Nazi tattoos on his body."
Clearly audible in the background is screaming, cursing and the thud of fists against the door.
For the second time that night, police came, arriving within minutes. Colclough and her boyfriend Collin Broadway, 38, were not seriously injured.
The five alleged attackers - two women and three men, all of them young and white - were arrested and face multiple felony and misdemeanor charges. Police spokesman Joe Durkin said the cases will be filed with the State Attorney's Office as hate crimes.
"They will have to answer for these reprehensible acts," Durkin said. "It was a terrifying experience for these two victims."
Durkin said the five suspects were angry because Colclough had called police minutes earlier to complain about noise from a party they were having.
Wednesday afternoon, Colclough, 24, looked around her living room at evidence from the night before. Glass shards covered the gray carpet where beer bottles smashed the sliding door; there was a large dent in the wall where the attackers slammed into Broadway.
Colclough's left cheek had a long red scratch. She said someone dug fingernails into her skin there.
"It's 2005," she said. "I don't understand this."
* * *
All but one of the five people arrested Wednesday live in the Bel Air apartments off S Manhattan Avenue north of Gandy Boulevard.
Joshua MacGeorge, 23, lives in Apartment 8 - three doors down from Colclough, who lives in Apartment 11. MacGeorge is charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling and felony battery, jail records show. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, this is his first arrest in Florida.
Police say he has a Nazi symbol tattooed on the left side of his neck.
Melissa Ann Smith, 25, lives in Apartment 10. She is charged with burglary, felony battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police say she threw beer bottles at Colclough. This is Smith's first arrest in Florida, according to the FDLE.
Crystal Lynn Swain, 20, and her husband, Michael Allen Swain, 27, live in Apartment 9. Both are charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling and misdemeanor battery.
FDLE records show that Crystal Swain has been arrested several times since 2000 on charges ranging from domestic battery to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In 2003, she was sentenced to two years' probation after pleading guilty to fleeing from police at high speeds.
The fifth person charged, Ralph Sherman Parr, 20, lives at 4115 W Fair Oaks Ave. in Tampa, according to a police report. He is charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling. FDLE records show he was arrested in Tampa on Jan. 1 and charged with domestic battery.
As of late Wednesday, all five were being held in the county jail in lieu of bail.
Tampa police want the cases tried as hate crimes.
In serious felony charges, prosecuting a case as a hate crime often doesn't make the sentence much more severe. But if the charge is a misdemeanor, prosecuting it as a hate crime bumps the charge up to felony status. In those cases, a conviction can result in significantly more jail time, said Pam Bondi, spokeswoman for State Attorney Mark Ober.
Bondi stressed, however, that for something to be a hate crime, hate has to be the "primary motivating factor" for the crime.
"It has to be more than just a racial slur," Bondi said. "Because we often have robberies where they'll scream the n-word at a cashier as they rob the store, but the primary motivator is to rob the store."
Most neighbors declined Wednesday to talk about the five people arrested. But when a friend of one of the arrested women spoke to a television reporter, her boyfriend emerged from a second-story apartment. Across his bare chest was a tattoo: Neo Nazi.
He screamed a profanity, then looked downstairs toward Colclough's apartment and shouted a racial slur.
* * *
Two weeks ago, Colclough gave her landlord notice that she planned to move out.
She had been living in the tiny apartment with her two girls, 8-year-old Delicia and 5-year-old Marialia, for fewer than five months.
From the beginning, she said, she felt uneasy.
Colclough said one of the neighbors used a racial slur in September after she asked the woman to stop setting off firecrackers outside.
In the months that followed, she went several times to the apartment next door to ask them to turn down their music, she said.
Colclough said she called police at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to complain about a loud party. She didn't give her name because she was afraid of what the neighbors would do.
After an officer came and told the group partying next door to keep it down, Crystal Swain went up and down the hall, knocking on doors, demanding to know who called the police, Colclough said.
Colclough said she cracked open her door, and at first denied making the call, and then admitted it. That's when the attack began, according to police.
"Thank God my girls were with their father," she said Wednesday afternoon. "I don't want them to see this."
Now, she and Broadway just want to get as far away from the apartment as possible.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/20/Hillsborough/Terrifying_attack_cal.shtml
Tampa, Florida police arrest five people accused of shouting racial slurs and attacking a couple who complained about a loud party at an apartment.
http://img102.exs.cx/img102/1751/woman4cm.jpghttp://img102.exs.cx/img102/782/attack0oo.jpg
TAMPA - It was 2 a.m. Wednesday, and at least five people were pounding at the front door of Ayesha Colclough's South Tampa apartment, shouting racial slurs and vowing to get her.
"Please, please, please, send someone to 4205 S Manhattan," pleaded the terrified woman, according to a 911 tape. "I am sitting in my apartment and they're throwing stuff at the glass window. . . . They're all white. One of them is bald, and he has neo-Nazi tattoos on his body."
Clearly audible in the background is screaming, cursing and the thud of fists against the door.
For the second time that night, police came, arriving within minutes. Colclough and her boyfriend Collin Broadway, 38, were not seriously injured.
The five alleged attackers - two women and three men, all of them young and white - were arrested and face multiple felony and misdemeanor charges. Police spokesman Joe Durkin said the cases will be filed with the State Attorney's Office as hate crimes.
"They will have to answer for these reprehensible acts," Durkin said. "It was a terrifying experience for these two victims."
Durkin said the five suspects were angry because Colclough had called police minutes earlier to complain about noise from a party they were having.
Wednesday afternoon, Colclough, 24, looked around her living room at evidence from the night before. Glass shards covered the gray carpet where beer bottles smashed the sliding door; there was a large dent in the wall where the attackers slammed into Broadway.
Colclough's left cheek had a long red scratch. She said someone dug fingernails into her skin there.
"It's 2005," she said. "I don't understand this."
* * *
All but one of the five people arrested Wednesday live in the Bel Air apartments off S Manhattan Avenue north of Gandy Boulevard.
Joshua MacGeorge, 23, lives in Apartment 8 - three doors down from Colclough, who lives in Apartment 11. MacGeorge is charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling and felony battery, jail records show. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, this is his first arrest in Florida.
Police say he has a Nazi symbol tattooed on the left side of his neck.
Melissa Ann Smith, 25, lives in Apartment 10. She is charged with burglary, felony battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police say she threw beer bottles at Colclough. This is Smith's first arrest in Florida, according to the FDLE.
Crystal Lynn Swain, 20, and her husband, Michael Allen Swain, 27, live in Apartment 9. Both are charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling and misdemeanor battery.
FDLE records show that Crystal Swain has been arrested several times since 2000 on charges ranging from domestic battery to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In 2003, she was sentenced to two years' probation after pleading guilty to fleeing from police at high speeds.
The fifth person charged, Ralph Sherman Parr, 20, lives at 4115 W Fair Oaks Ave. in Tampa, according to a police report. He is charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling. FDLE records show he was arrested in Tampa on Jan. 1 and charged with domestic battery.
As of late Wednesday, all five were being held in the county jail in lieu of bail.
Tampa police want the cases tried as hate crimes.
In serious felony charges, prosecuting a case as a hate crime often doesn't make the sentence much more severe. But if the charge is a misdemeanor, prosecuting it as a hate crime bumps the charge up to felony status. In those cases, a conviction can result in significantly more jail time, said Pam Bondi, spokeswoman for State Attorney Mark Ober.
Bondi stressed, however, that for something to be a hate crime, hate has to be the "primary motivating factor" for the crime.
"It has to be more than just a racial slur," Bondi said. "Because we often have robberies where they'll scream the n-word at a cashier as they rob the store, but the primary motivator is to rob the store."
Most neighbors declined Wednesday to talk about the five people arrested. But when a friend of one of the arrested women spoke to a television reporter, her boyfriend emerged from a second-story apartment. Across his bare chest was a tattoo: Neo Nazi.
He screamed a profanity, then looked downstairs toward Colclough's apartment and shouted a racial slur.
* * *
Two weeks ago, Colclough gave her landlord notice that she planned to move out.
She had been living in the tiny apartment with her two girls, 8-year-old Delicia and 5-year-old Marialia, for fewer than five months.
From the beginning, she said, she felt uneasy.
Colclough said one of the neighbors used a racial slur in September after she asked the woman to stop setting off firecrackers outside.
In the months that followed, she went several times to the apartment next door to ask them to turn down their music, she said.
Colclough said she called police at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to complain about a loud party. She didn't give her name because she was afraid of what the neighbors would do.
After an officer came and told the group partying next door to keep it down, Crystal Swain went up and down the hall, knocking on doors, demanding to know who called the police, Colclough said.
Colclough said she cracked open her door, and at first denied making the call, and then admitted it. That's when the attack began, according to police.
"Thank God my girls were with their father," she said Wednesday afternoon. "I don't want them to see this."
Now, she and Broadway just want to get as far away from the apartment as possible.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/20/Hillsborough/Terrifying_attack_cal.shtml