Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

On The DTM, proprietor Dave McNair interviews the two men accused of a gleeful, random attack on the Downtown Mall last month, and the picture that the accused paint of themselves is rather opposite of the one painted of them by the thousands of angry racists who descended on C-Ville Weekly’s website to post vile comments.

For starters, Malcolm Stevenson (25) and Richard Spears (23) are both openly gay. Stevenson is a graduate of the University of Virginia, and is a manager at Eppie’s. Spears is a soft-spoken, full-time student of the Virginia School of Massage, where he’s studying to be a massage therapist. Their police records are minimal: Stevenson has a few traffic violations, Spears was once charged with swearing in public and intoxication. Although these facts in no way demonstrate that they are or are not guilty of the attacks, these men certainly are nowhere close to fitting the gangbanger stereotype that Matt Drudge and his followers presented them as.

The two men say that they’d been drinking, and admit to a physical altercation with Marc Adams and his girlfriend, Jeanne Doucette. But they accuse the two of being drunk, and having started the altercation, saying that Doucette called them “black faggots” and that Adams aggressively pursued Stevenson. They say that a third man—a stranger—stepped in, trying to break it up, and that it was he who punched Adams in the face.

Stevenson tells McNair that he understands that he’s going to be charged with something—that’s what happens after a fight—but that “if I’m going to be held accountable for my actions, then they need to be held accountable for theirs.”