University of Virginia Library

Daily Progress Story
Blurs Circumstances

An article in Saturday's Daily
Progress concerning the arrest of
the editor of The Cavalier Daily for
"disorderly conduct" last week created
several false impressions as to
the nature and validity of the circumstances
under which he was
arrested.

The article states: "...a police
officer was attempting to subdue a
group of loud UVa students.
When the officer escorted one of
the students outside, Richard B.
Gwathmey, Jr., the newspaper's editor,
followed. The officer said
Gwathmey flashed his press card
when asked to leave the scene. The
officer testified that earlier he had
reprimanded Gwathmey for sitting
in a baby chair in the restaurant
and for obstreperous behavior...."

According to four witnesses, the
officer was not "attempting to subdue
a group of loud students;"
further, they said, at no lime in the
evening did Mr. Gwathmey sit in a
"baby chair" or be reprimanded for
"obstreperous behavior." Another
student, whom the officer later
mistook to be Mr. Gwathmey, had
been sitting in such a chair when
the officer told him to get out of it.

The witnesses added that the
student the officer took outside
had not been "loud" or among "a
group of loud UVa students,"
and had committed no apparent
offense, which was Mr. Gwathmey's
reason for inquiring with the officer
into the nature of the charges
against him (the student); the officer
refused to state his reason for
arresting the student and even after
Mr. Gwathmey identified himself as
a member of the press, told Mr.
Gwathmey to leave the restaurant,
not to leave "the scene" of the
arrest as the Progress article implies.

At no time, the witnesses stat
did Mr. Gwathmey raise his voice or
do anything which could be called
"disorderly;" his "offense" was
that he persisted in his inquiry into
the nature of the student's "offense"
when he received no reply.

These facts, including the officer's
error in the identification of
the student in the baby chair, were
not revealed in the trial because the
four witnesses for the defense did
not have to testify. The judge
heard the officer's account
of his reasons for arresting
Mr. Gwathmey and dismissed the
charges on that basis.

The other student involved had
been released at the scene.