DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997              TAG: 9704100003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B14  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   32 lines

HIGHWAY HAZARD MURDEROUS ROCK-THROWING

Throwing hard objects at moving vehicles is a felony. And should be.

Rocks thrown from a Western Freeway overpass in Suffolk demonstrate why. A Nansemond River High School baseball player had to be hospitalized last Thursday after a rock crashed through the windshield of the vehicle he was driving.

A woman was injured two days later when a rock hit her vehicle at the same spot.

Rocks hit three vehicles within six minutes last Thursday. One of the rocks, about the size of a baseball, slammed into the windshield of the vehicle driven by Evan Spivey, 17. Four of Spivey's teammates were passengers. The vehicle, the injured Spivey at the wheel, veered across the median strip into the oncoming lanes and smashed into a guard rail. Spivey required surgery and may need more.

``Three inches higher,'' his mother said, ``and he could have been blind, or it could have killed him.''

In the minutes before Spivey's windshield was shattered, rocks shattered the front passenger window of a van and scratched and dented a pickup truck.

Two African-American males dressed in dark clothing are suspected of the crimes - a motorist who witnessed the rock-throwing provided the description.

Anyone with information should call the Suffolk Crime Line, 539-1222, or police dispatcher, 925-6350.

But for the grace of God, police would be looking for murderers.

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