No Knock Out: police charge two in Mall beating, details emerge

Richard Spears and Malcolm Stevenson were arrested on Wednesday and charged with assault.

What was portrayed as a vicious, unprovoked "knock out game" and "Clockwork Orange" style attack on a white couple by a group of black males on the Downtown Mall, both on social media and in initial press reports, appears to have been nothing of the sort.

"Nothing in support of this investigation leads us to believe this was a "knock out" attack," said Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo during a press conference on Wednesday, January 8 announcing that 25-year-old Malcolm James Stevenson and 23-year-old Richard Bernard Spears, both of Charlottesville, had been arrested and charged with assault. They were released that same day and must appear in court on February 5.

Based on interviews with the suspects and the victims, 39-year old Marc Adams and Jeanne Doucette, Longo said that the incident that happened between Blue Light Grill and the Wells Fargo Bank building at approximately 1:40am on Decemb…