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Cops: Mob beats up 2 robbers

Woman injured with BB gun, police say

By Brad Zinn/staff
bzinn@newsleader.com

WAYNESBORO ? Two armed robbers were beaten by a mob early Tuesday morning at the Mountain View Apartments after they broke into a woman's residence for the second time in less than two hours, Waynesboro police said.

Michael Seifert, 19, of Waynesboro and Blake M. Via, 18, of Stuarts Draft each are charged with armed robbery, abduction, malicious wounding and breaking and entering.

Police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Walker said authorities received an initial call at 3:11 a.m. from an 18-year-old woman who reported two unknown men had kicked in a door and entered her apartment. As the woman peeked around the corner, the men saw her and fled, driving away in a white car.

Walker said police went to the apartment and took a report. About an hour and 15 minutes later, police received a second call from the woman stating the two men had returned, this time armed with a long gun and two handguns that later were determined to be BB guns.

Walker said the men forced the woman into a back bedroom, where she was shot in the leg. The assailants then ordered the woman out of the apartment. Walker said after the woman called 911 again, she rounded up a group of four men from nearby apartments "and the fracas was on."

When police arrived at the apartment complex, which sits across from Kate Collins Middle School, Via broke free from the mob, but police tracked him down after a brief foot chase. "We found the other one lying on the landing of the steps to the apartment," Walker said.

Walker said the two robbers were carrying a computer and a Playstation 3 when ambushed. Both pieces of equipment, valued about $1,400, were damaged during the ensuing melee.

"It was pretty wild," Walker said.

Police also found suspected crack cocaine and powder cocaine on the men, Walker said. Drug charges against the pair are pending forensic testing.

Both suspects were treated at Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville for minor injuries and released. They are being held at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona without bond.

Walker said he the woman's skin was broken when she was struck by the BB. "I don't know if it embedded in her. The report didn't say."

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