Probation for Vassell: 'Regret' admitted, but not guilt in 2008 stabbing at UMass dorm
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NORTHAMPTON - With both sides claiming victory, the court saga of Jason Vassell came to a close Friday.
The 26-year-old former University of Massachusetts Amherst student had been accused of repeatedly stabbing two men, John Bowes and Jonathan Bosse, in the lobby of his dormitory.
With a team of lawyers and a large group of supporters, Vassell, who is black, maintains he was defending himself against white instigators. Although Bowes and Bosse - both of whom are now 22 - were said to have taunted Vassell with racial epithets and insults before their confrontation came to blows, neither was armed.
In an agreement that attorneys in the case said was hammered out over the last year or more, the two counts against Vassell of aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon will likely be dropped Aug. 3.
He could have been sentenced up to 30 years in prison if convicted on both charges.
Hampshire Superior Court Judge Judd Carhart signed off of the arrangement during a brief hearing Friday morning, placing Vassell on pretrial probation - a form of supervised release that, if successfully completed, will result in the charges being dismissed.
"What a tremendous victory this is for Jason Vassell," defense lawyer David Hoose told a crowd of about 60 cheering supporters outside the courthouse after the hearing.
"You all proved how important it is for community to be involved and take action against racist violence," Hoose said.
Vassell himself declined an interview request.
Two security camera views of the incident:
At a press conference later, Deputy First Assistant Elizabeth Dunphy Farris said the prosecution's goal from the start has been for Vassell to take responsibility for his actions - and that he did so Friday.
Farris said she believed pretrial probation for Vassell was a "fair resolution." While he did not plead guilty, Farris noted Vassell had signed a document saying he "regrets his actions."
Vassell easily could have called police before his confrontation with Bowes and Bosse escalated, Farris said, but instead he grabbed a knife.
Hoose said it wasn't that simple.
"I don't know if we as white people can understand the terror that goes through a black man's body" when he is confronted with racial epithets, Hoose said.
Each of three men involved in the fracas had been drinking heavily, Farris said. Without being specific, she said she reviewed medical records showing Vassell's "acute intoxication" shortly after the fight, and academic records she said revealed Vassell was under great stress. She took that information into account in arriving at the pretrial probation agreement, she said.
And although supporters of Vassell have packed court hearings, held marches, signed petitions and, on one day, swamped the district attorney's office with phone calls, Farris said she was unmoved by the "Justice for Jason" effort.
During the press conference Farris gave reporters the first look at an 11-minute surveillance video of the altercation, which happened about 5 a.m. in the lobby of the MacKimmie's dormitory.
Kept secret while the case was pending, the video is now a public record.
Two motion-activated cameras captured Vassell, Bowes and Bosse in what appears to be a heated conversation. The recording has no sound. As their dispute intensifies, Bosse appears to restrain Bowes while a fourth man, identified in court records as Vishan Chamanlal, holds Vassell at bay.
The figures move off camera several times, and it's unclear who deals the first blow. The fight lasts a matter of seconds, with Vassell, Bowes and Bosse circling the room and exchanging jabs.
Vassell then retreats behind a locked door with a window. Bosse spends several minutes apparently trying to force the door open and gesturing through the window. Bowes, meanwhile, talks on a cell phone.
Police arrive moments later.
For some, Vassell's case opens onto larger questions about race relations.
Jasmin Torrejon, a Justice for Jason committee member, said the resolution of Vassell's case was cause for celebration.
"When people get together to fight for justice and mobilize to build power, our communities can win major victories against systems of inequality and oppression," she told supporters who gathered at the Media Education Foundation in Northampton after court.
Along with organizing rallies in Vassell's support, Justice for Jason has also raised money to help pay for his legal defense.
On Friday one supporter, Sally Weiss of Northampton, emptied her purse and passed it around the room, asking other supporters to help pay Vassell's court fees. She said she collected about $300.
In an interview, another supporter, former UMass Afro-American studies professor Ekwueme Mike Thelwell, decried what he called "crude and vulgar racial profiling" on the part of UMass police and administrators. He also said the Northwestern district attorney's office put Vassell through unnecessary torment by dragging the case out for more than two years.
Speaking to supporters, Thelwell noted Vassell's situation was unique in that family and supporters helped him pay for legal representation. "Most young black men in Jason's circumstances don't have" that kind of opportunity, he said.
As Vassell's court case developed, his lawyers advanced the theory that UMass police investigators were biased against Vassell because of his race. They also argued the charges against Vassell were out of proportion with the penalties prosecutors sought for Bosse and Bowes.
Bosse was never charged. Assault and battery charges against Bowes were dropped before his trial in March 2009. In the end, a jury found him guilty of disorderly conduct, and a judge placed him on probation for a year.
Farris said in court that Bosse and Bowes "still do have physical scars, in addition to what they have endured in the public media. They have endured what I believe is an unwarranted reflection on their character."
Now on pretrial probation, Vassell must reside with his parents in Boston, observe a curfew of midnight to 5 a.m. and stay away from Bosse and Bowes. He is also forbidden to use alcohol or drugs and must submit to random urine screenings.
Technically, Vassell was placed on pretrial probation for 2½ years, but Carhart ordered that it began on the date of the alleged stabbings, Feb. 3, 2008. That means Vassell has less than two months of pretrial probation left to serve.
Gazette contributing writer Daniel Scheer contributed to this report. James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.
Comments
justice
It boggles the mind to think that the aggressors faced minimul charges and the victim of the hate crime serious prison time. The staff at the DA's office need to learn about what it is like to be black in America, what blacks feel - threatened with their life- when confronted with violence such as in this case.
You should look at those
You should look at those videos. The young man with the knife was wrong to stab the other two un-armed men no matter what they may have said. This could have been much worse for all concerned.
It also appears that Jason was the aggressor. Btw, did the two white admit to using the N-word, or is that just JV side of the story?
Bill
shameful prosecutor statement
In two months, the charges against Jason Vassell will be dismissed, meaning he will be neither convicted of a crime, nor even charged with one. And yet, he has lived two-and-a-half years under the title "accused" (originally of intent to murder), with his name and reputation ruined.
And yet on the day the prosecution was forced to give up their crusade to send him to prison, the prosecutor, Elizabeth Dunphy Farris, was mainly concerned about what the racist attackers "endured in the public media." Truly unbelievable.
The Justice for Jason organization has truly done us all -- even attorney Farris -- a favor by stopping a further miscarriage of justice.