Suspects speak out on Norfolk attack

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - Two teenagers charged in connection with a Downtown Norfolk mob assault on two Virginian-Pilot reporters appeared in court Monday morning and spoke exclusively with WAVY News 10's Andy Fox.

Police made the latest arrests , of two 16-year-olds and a 13-year-old, Saturday and charged each with two counts of simple assault by mob and one count of participation in a riot. The second 16-year-old suspect will be in court Tuesday.

The two families that spoke to WAVY News 10 outside court said police have the wrong guys; that they were not involved in the attack. However, police investigators told WAVY.com Monday they were obviously arrested because somebody puts them at the scene and witnessed their involvement.

According to the police report obtained by WAVY.com , David Forster and his colleague, Marjon Rostami, had just left an event on April 14, when they came to a stoplight at the intersection of Church Street and Brambleton Avenue around 11 p.m. Forster told WAVY.com there was a huge crowd of young people and someone at the crowd threw a rock at his car.

Rostami told police she believed the rock was thrown because the suspect saw her lock her door as a large group of young black men passed by the car.

Forster got out of his car to confront the person who threw the rock and that is when both he and Rostami allege they were attacked.

Police arrested another 16-year-old suspect on May 3. He is the teen accused of throwing the rock. That makes four arrests so far in connection with this incident.

WAVY.com asked the suspects Monday if the attack was racially motivated. They responded it wasn't.

"No. Not at all," said the 13-year-old who will not be identified.

The teen's mother told WAVY.com she doesn't know what led up to the rock being thrown. "I don't know. Go ask the people who did it."

"No, they got the wrong people, they got the wrong guy," A 16-year-old suspect's father told WAVY.com "He wasn't even there. It was not racially motivated, they got the wrong people. The right people have not been arrested."

"I don't think it has a racial intent," Bruce Sams told WAVY.com,. Sams is representing one of the 16-year-olds. "It was certainly an incident that happened that was more sparked. I don't believe, from my understanding, from what I even know of what happened, that they could even be identified as two white individuals in the car."

A witness to the attack spoke exclusively with WAVY.com over the weekend. The 16-year-old is so afraid of retaliation, she insisted on hiding her identity.

10 On Your Side asked if she thinks the teen threw the rock at the car because the driver was white.

"They were throwing stuff, just because... just because," she said. "They were just hyped and 'Oh I want to do something.' So they threw something. They didn't know there were going to be white people in the car"

She says there were dozens of people yelling on the sidewalks, mostly kids her age.

"There were cars leaving the party and there were regular people from everyday life, just driving around," she said. "As they were driving, people kept going. I was confused like is anybody going to get out the car? Is anybody going to beep, stop, help?"

When the driver finally got back into the car, the girl says a group of teens went to check on him. They told her the driver had blood on his face, but said he was fine and planned to tell police.

Stay with WAVY News 10 and WAVY.com for updates.