The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
ACLU LOOKING AT POLICE SHOOTING
Does the Fairfax County Police Department have the right to withhold the name of the police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man on Richmond Highway? That’s a question at the heart of a potential legal challenge now being considered by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. Executive Director Kent Willis said an "army of lawyers" would be closely examining documents presented to the Richmond-based organization this week from a Mount Vernon organization known as the Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability. (Mt. Vernon Gazette)
85-YEAR-OLD ARRESTED
A Fredericksburg teenager said she saw no reason to be alarmed March 29 when she accepted a ride home from an 85-year-old stranger. Before the 1 1/2-mile ride was over, the young woman testified yesterday in Fredericksburg Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, she was "freaking out." She said the elderly driver touched her breast and made numerous sexually suggestive comments during the short ride. John William Sinnett, 85, of Spotsylvania is charged with abduction with the intent to defile. The charge, which carries a possible life sentence, was sent to a city grand jury following a preliminary hearing yesterday. According to the evidence presented by Commonwealth's Attorney LaBravia Jenkins, the girl was walking home from James Monroe High School about 11:30 a.m. when Sinnett pulled up on Fall Hill Avenue.
(Fredericksburg.com)
TEXT MESSAGE SAVES LIFE
A man doused his estranged wife's Crownsville home with gasoline and bound and tormented the woman for hours Tuesday afternoon before fatally shooting himself when an officer arrived to investigate, county police said. The incident took place just hours after a District Court judge in Annapolis granted Andrea Dean a restraining order against her estranged husband, James John Dean, 47, according to electronic court records. Police say Andrea Dean's quick thinking - she sent a text message to a friend to call 911 - and the officer's knowledge of previous calls at the home thwarted what was apparently intended to be a murder-suicide. (The Capital)
LOCAL BEACHES SEE SURGE IN BUSINESS
Beaches along the East Coast are welcoming a surge of new business as vacationers abandon trips to the Gulf of Mexico's oil-soaked shores. Tourism officials and business ownersalong the Eastern Seaboard, from Ocean City to the Outer Banks, are seeing beachgoers — leery of Gulf Coast crude — testing the waters farther north. "I can't keep up with the e-mails I'm getting for inquiries," said Sheila Davolos, rental manager at Jack Lingo Realtor in Delaware's Rehoboth Beach. (Washington Examiner)
