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Helecopter Story false, gun charges are dropped
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Story false, gun charges are dropped
BY ANDREW PETKOFSKY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 21, 2002
WILLIAMSBURG - It could have been a scene from an action movie:
The morning quiet of a neighborhood is torn by a throbbing, chunka-chunka wall of sound. A small helicopter appears over the houses and lands in a vacant lot. A man darts out from behind a tree to hop in as the helicopter lifts off the ground.
Then comes the crack of an assault rifle. A man stands in the front door of his home shooting at what he thinks is a terrorist rendezvous.
That was the picture that emerged in the days after a helicopter landed unexpectedly in Williamsburg's Fort Magruder Heights neighborhood on the morning of July 13.
Police investigating the incident eventually brought charges against the pilot and the man who told them he fired the shots.
But yesterday in Williamsburg/James City County General District Court, the prosecutor withdrew all charges against John S. Chwaszcewski, the man who had confessed to firing the shots.
Chwaszcewski had been charged with firing a gun in a public place, assault and battery and reckless handling of a firearm.
"It appears that his confession was merely one that was made up," Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Richard Rizk told Judge J.R. Zepkin.
Rizk said police could not find any evidence that a gun had been fired.
The helicopter pilot did land, Rizk said, but he was simply picking up a friend whom he had expected to notify neighborhood residents.
In an agreement negotiated with the pilot, John S. Sutton, Rizk asked the judge to withhold a finding on Sutton's misdemeanor charge of operating an aircraft recklessly, assess a $100 fine and require him to take three hours of remedial flight instruction.
The agreement also called for the judge to dismiss the charge in six months if the pilot did as directed.
The judge accepted the agreement, except that he said he could not levy a $100 fine in a case that would end with a dismissal of charges.
In his summary of the two cases, Rizk attributed the drama of the story that had circulated after the incident to the unreliability of Chwaszcewski's report to police, Sutton's failure to tell police the complete story of why he made the landing and the nature of the press.
"It hit the media," Rizk said, "and then things snowballed from there."
He said Sutton had agreed to land and pick up his friend, resident John Peters, after the two men had walked through the neighborhood the evening before and made sure a landing would be safe. Sutton's lawyer, Michael Ware, said the two men planned the flight for fun.
Sutton led investigators to believe he might have landed because of concern over a flickering instrument light, Ware said after the trial, but Sutton was simply being "cagey" because he was uneasy about being the subject of investigation.
Contact Andrew Petkofsky at (757) 229-1512 or apetkofsky@timesdispatch.com
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGBF5C3VC6D.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
BY ANDREW PETKOFSKY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 21, 2002
WILLIAMSBURG - It could have been a scene from an action movie:
The morning quiet of a neighborhood is torn by a throbbing, chunka-chunka wall of sound. A small helicopter appears over the houses and lands in a vacant lot. A man darts out from behind a tree to hop in as the helicopter lifts off the ground.
Then comes the crack of an assault rifle. A man stands in the front door of his home shooting at what he thinks is a terrorist rendezvous.
That was the picture that emerged in the days after a helicopter landed unexpectedly in Williamsburg's Fort Magruder Heights neighborhood on the morning of July 13.
Police investigating the incident eventually brought charges against the pilot and the man who told them he fired the shots.
But yesterday in Williamsburg/James City County General District Court, the prosecutor withdrew all charges against John S. Chwaszcewski, the man who had confessed to firing the shots.
Chwaszcewski had been charged with firing a gun in a public place, assault and battery and reckless handling of a firearm.
"It appears that his confession was merely one that was made up," Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Richard Rizk told Judge J.R. Zepkin.
Rizk said police could not find any evidence that a gun had been fired.
The helicopter pilot did land, Rizk said, but he was simply picking up a friend whom he had expected to notify neighborhood residents.
In an agreement negotiated with the pilot, John S. Sutton, Rizk asked the judge to withhold a finding on Sutton's misdemeanor charge of operating an aircraft recklessly, assess a $100 fine and require him to take three hours of remedial flight instruction.
The agreement also called for the judge to dismiss the charge in six months if the pilot did as directed.
The judge accepted the agreement, except that he said he could not levy a $100 fine in a case that would end with a dismissal of charges.
In his summary of the two cases, Rizk attributed the drama of the story that had circulated after the incident to the unreliability of Chwaszcewski's report to police, Sutton's failure to tell police the complete story of why he made the landing and the nature of the press.
"It hit the media," Rizk said, "and then things snowballed from there."
He said Sutton had agreed to land and pick up his friend, resident John Peters, after the two men had walked through the neighborhood the evening before and made sure a landing would be safe. Sutton's lawyer, Michael Ware, said the two men planned the flight for fun.
Sutton led investigators to believe he might have landed because of concern over a flickering instrument light, Ware said after the trial, but Sutton was simply being "cagey" because he was uneasy about being the subject of investigation.
Contact Andrew Petkofsky at (757) 229-1512 or apetkofsky@timesdispatch.com
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGBF5C3VC6D.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878