Four Await Court Verdicts On Boston Assault Last Year

Four members of the Committee Against Racism charged with assault with a dangerous weapon on July 23, 1975, in Boston, are awaiting verdicts from the Suffolk County Superior Court jury which adjourned yesterday.

The jury began deliberations at 3:00 p.m. after a week of hearings, but did not return with their decision last night and is expected to re-convene this morning.

"I would say that this is not a simple case of assault and battery," Robert Pleshaw, the defense lawyer for the four said yesterday. "There is some racism involved," he said.

The four are charged with assaulting a man with a hammer after a meeting at the Ohrenberger School in Hyde Park.

There were about 70 people at the meeting carrying Restore Our Alienated Rights signs, bats and police batons, and yelling things like "Jew bastards and niggers get out," Daniel Lane, one of the defendants, said.

"We tried to have the meeting," Lane said, "but there was so much yelling and screaming that we had to leave. They had all the doors locked except for the main door where people were stationed. It got to be very frightening so we left."

Rose Lewis, one of the defendants, said that they pulled up in front of a friends house to get directions and were followed by a man in his car, yelling, "Blacks get out of my neighborhood."

The man charged that the four hit his head twice with a hammer. Lewis said yesterday, "We didn't touch him. I just got out of there."

The meeting had been called to do something about improving schools in the Hyde Park and West Roxbury areas, which have been the scene of outbursts of racial hostilities and violence ever since U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity's ruling for school desegregation in 1970.