This Week Year in Crime: Crime and (Eventual) Punishment

As we experience a brief lull in Reston's scary MASSIVE CRIME WAVE, we get to revisit a couple of blasts from the past, courtesy of the ever-speedy judicial system.

First, the upstanding youth who helped ring in the New Year in South Reston finally had their day in court. And we finally get to hear a rich, textured tale of star-crossed lovers, mistaken identities... and gangs.

The 19-year-old victim and 19-year-old defendant came from contrasting backgrounds and didn’t know each other, but they will be forever linked by last New Year’s Eve.

Oooh, dramatic! Unfortunately, we already know what happens next.

Kevin Jones Jr., now 20, of Maryland, was stabbed five times by Calvin C. Wallace, a Ghost Town Crips gang member from Reston whom he didn’t even know.

"I think about it all the time. How can I forget what happened to me that night?" Jones testified at Wallace’s sentencing hearing Friday, Sept. 26 in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

Wallace, who had joined the Ghost Town Crips in the fall before the attack according to prosecutors, demonstrated visible remorse while Jones and his family testified last Friday.

"I think about my actions every day," said Wallace, now 20, of North Shore Drive in Reston.

Smith sentenced Wallace to 20 years in prison for malicious wounding and 10 years for criminal street gang participation. He suspended 22 years of the sentence, meaning Wallace will serve eight years in prison.

The case was only the second Casey M. Lingan could recall prosecuting where gang activity victimized someone with no connection to gangs.

"The Commonwealth has a victim who is completely and wholly innocent, essentially because someone was jealous over a girl," said Lingan, deputy commonwealth’s attorney.

And that's where the story just gets weird. But it has a little something for everyone -- romance! Action! Guys hanging on accelerating cars!

JONES AND HIS FRIEND attended a New Year’s Eve party in Loudoun County with a female friend. The female had previously dated Jones’ friend and was currently dating a juvenile friend of the defendant.

"The defendant wasn’t even the jealous one," said Lingan.

At some point during the party, the girl asked Jones’ friend to drive her to a house in Reston near the 12200 block of Scotch Bonnet Court to meet her boyfriend.

As soon as the vehicle pulled into the cul-de-sac, a group of 15 individuals surrounded the car.

"I’m going to teach this man a lesson," Wallace’s friend said, according to search warrants filed in the case.

While Wallace’s friend assaulted the driver with his fists — and pulled out a pellet gun — Wallace pulled out a buck knife and stabbed Jones, who tried to help his friend, the driver.

Wallace had been drinking and was high on PCP that evening, said his defense attorney John D. Brosnan.

Jones’ friend accelerated away from the scene, and their attackers fell from the vehicle as the driver rounded a curve.

"I got hit five times in my face, I didn’t know I had been stabbed," Jones testified Friday.

"If it wasn’t for my friend pulling off, who knows what would have happened," Jones testified.

Meanwhile, another upstanding resident had his day in court stemming from a September 2007 attempted murder of a police officer on Sunrise Valley Drive in Herndon.

Rocky L. King, 27, was sentenced Friday, Sept. 26 to 51 years in prison for the attempted capital murder of Fairfax County Police Officer Eugene Bork.

Officer Bork spent more than 45 minutes talking to King, after a single car accident about 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2007 at Coppermine Road and Sunrise Valley Drive in Herndon.

When King eventually got out of the car, he pulled a handgun directly to the officer’s face.

Bork wrestled the gun away from King, who was shot by officers seven times.

King’s blood alcohol content was tested to be 0.23, nearly three times the legal limit to drive.

Nope. No impaired judgement there.